The Beef Index: How Alabama and Auburn stack up with the SEC’s heaviest offensive lines

In 2023, Alabama football had the heaviest offensive line, based on average weight of starters, in the SEC. It wasn’t even close, the Crimson Tide weighed in at 339.4 pounds, with Vanderbilt in second place at 325.

Fast forward to 2024 and the Crimson Tide dropped to 13th, according to Beef Index data, released Thursday by AL.com. So what happened?

First of all, the Beef Index numbers take into account only Week 1 starters. For Alabama, that means losing the heaviest member of its offensive line unit, Kadyn Proctor, who was hurt in pregame warmups before the Tide faced Western Kentucky.

Had the 369-pound Proctor taken the field, Alabama’s average would have climbed to 323.6 pounds. That wouldn’t have placed the Tide back to the top of the list, but would have put it up to seventh.

Second, the unit simply slimmed down. Under new head coach Kalen DeBoer and offensive line coach Chris Kapilovic, Alabama prioritized movement, bringing in transfer center Parker Brailsford, who weighs 290 pounds and having other players, like Tyler Booker, lose weight.

Alabama moved significantly year-over-year in another metric as well. The Tide climbed from 12th in the SEC in offensive line total weight to first, counting every player on the online roster.

There’s an extremely simple reason for that. Alabama went from carrying 18 to 23 offensive linemen, and thus jumped from 5,534 pounds to 7,025.

When averaging out the weights of every offensive linemen on the roster, Alabama slipped several spots from 2023. The Crimson Tide weighed in at 307.4 pounds via that metric last season, 12th in the 14-team conference, but dropped to 305.43 pounds in 2024, last in the 12-team league.

Auburn

The Tigers took a huge drop down the standings in terms of starter average weight. While AU checked in third, at 321.4 pounds last season, the 2024 first five weighed an average of 311.8 pounds, dead last in the league.

The big loss there was Kam Stutts, whose 343 pounds topped out the group by a large margin. This year, Jeremiah Wright is the heaviest starter, at 333 pounds, with other weight drops around him.

Auburn sits 13th in total weight. Again, that’s the easiest metric to manipulate, simply by carrying more linemen.

The Tigers have 19 offensive linemen listed, and sit third among the four teams carrying that number. Last season, Auburn carried 18, sitting 13th among the 16 teams now in the SEC.

AU lost several places on the final metric, which averages the weights of all rostered offensive linemen. The Tigers checked in 13th for 2024, at 309.79 pounds, one of just four teams to come in below 310.

Last season, the Tigers sat 10th of the 16 current SEC teams, at 311.22 pounds.