I may be the only one

[Prediction? Pain.]

I believe this OLine is as elite as any in the conference. Going back to last season, they have been blowing people off the line, creating HUGE holes to run and great pass protection. Saturday, if they had wanted, MSU could have run for 500 yards. Soon teams will have to stack the box and respect the run with the added dimension of running power QB ...there will be some wide open receivers and Fitz will make those throws.... honestly I'm not worried until November 10th.

Commerce, that's cool. I didn't see that stat on the ncaa site. Do you have a link?

I think the O-line performed at an elite level last season and that they're going to do it again this year.

I don't know what stat Commerce was referring to -- ETA: thanks for the link, Commerce -- but I know that in 2017, our line's stats were phenomenal. The website Football Outsiders compiles advanced stats for every O-line in college football that take into account a ton of data, such as "line yards" (raw and opponent-adjusted ypc on short-yardage and long-yardage downs (which the site calls "standard downs" and "passing downs")), "opportunity rate" (the percentage of our rushes that gain at least 5 yards), "power success rate" (percentage of successful rushes -- i.e. TDs and first downs -- on short-yardage downs), "stuff rate" (the raw rate of TFLs allowed and zero-yards rushes allowed), and "sack rates" (raw and opponent-adjusted sacks-allowed-per-passing-attempt rates for standard and passing downs).

Here is where our O-line ranked nationally in those statistical categories at the end of 2017:

Adjusted Line Yards - 19th
Standard Down Line Yards - 7th
Passing Down Line Yards - 29th
Opportunity Rate - 6th
Power Success Rate - 2nd
Stuff Rate - 7th
Adjusted Sack Rate - 7th
Standard Down Sack Rate - 20th
Passing Down Sack Rate - 17th

Those numbers are ridiculous. No other line in the SEC came close to that. Bama's and Auburn's raw and adjusted sack-rate ranks were all 92nd or worse and UGA's sack and power success rates ranked from the mid-40s down to the 110s. The O-lines on the elite teams from elsewhere were likewise not as consistently good across the board as ours, including the lines for Clemson, Oklahoma, and Ohio St.

Football Outsiders won't post the 2018 stats for O-lines until closer to midway through the season, but I would expect us to be ranked similarly or better after two games. We're first in the SEC in TFLs allowed, sacks allowed, and yards per carry. Granted, our competition level so far isn't as great as some other teams in the conference, but based on how great our line was last year, I see no reason to think that we're doing anything other than picking up where we left off.