Inside Penn State’s Playbook: Backside Switch Routes

This rarely-used Run and Shoot concept within Mike Yurcich’s offense has been more ‘miss’ than ‘hit’ through two seasons in Happy Valley…but that could quickly change now that a certain someone is the QB in command. 

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The year is 1965 and Mouse Davis, a diminutive high school football coach in BFE, Oregon, is desperately searching for a solution to his “pissant” problem. By pissant (Mouse’s words, not ours) we mean that a bunch of stringy, short, skinny, sawed-off but swift young adults litter his roster.

So Mouse – a pissant himself, hence the nickname — picks up a book. Not just any book, though.

In a storyline that eerily parallels Biff Tannen’s rise to wealth/power in Back To The Future 2, Davis thumbs through a copy of Tiger Ellison’s book “Run and Shoot Football: Offense of the Future” – The Old Testament of Run and Shoot football, if you will – and it forever changes his life.

An instant disciple of Ellison’s teachings, Mouse shifts his tiny army of future accountants, lumberjacks and regional managers out of the trenches and into space. By utilizing the entire width of the field, Davis essentially neutered the imbalance in brawn between his team and the opponent and made it more likely that foes would defend his speedy pissants with pissants of their own – thus relocating the game from taking place inside of a phone booth to more of a wide-open prairie.

The results? Well, they revolutionized football even though the Run and Shoot never truly got the recognition it deserved.

Despite flinging the ball all over the yard and rewriting record books like he was playing NCAA Football 14 on Varsity (for those of you with lives, that’s the easiest difficulty level in the video game) Davis’ Run and Shoot was largely dismissed by the stubborn meatball coaching community as a “gimmick” offense. That might explain why Davis never really laid roots in one particular place as a playcaller, bouncing between 14 gigs in 8 leagues (High School, NCAA, NFL, CFL, Arena Football, Arena Football 2, USFL, World League of American Football) before calling it quits in 2010.

Still, several of Davis’ Run and Shoot concepts remain prevalent in the modern passing game and are used by some of the most ingenious offensive minds patrolling the sidelines today.

One of those minds belongs to Penn State Offensive Coordinator Mike Yurcich…

…and one of those Run and Shoot concepts he often employs is the backside switch route.

Strategy/Philosophy

So what is a switch route?

Glad you asked, because I’ve been staring at a blinking cursor for the past 12 minutes struggling to find a nifty intro for this section.

A switch concept is a two-receiver route combination in which the outside receiver and inside receiver exchange or “switch” locales post-snap – the inside receiver becomes the outside receiver and vice versa. After the switch, the receivers are given a bevy of route options to run depending on how they and the QB read coverage. In other words, “switch” is a malleable concept that can take on many forms and look completely different play to play to play even though it’s the same damn play (more on this later).

Here’s probably the most memorable example of switch from the 2022 season:

Pre-snap, at the top of the screen, 1-KeAndre Lambert-Smith is the outside receiver and 84-Theo Johnson is the inside receiver. Roughly 7 yards into their routes, though, that all changes. KLS becomes the inside receiver as Theo rubs underneath and becomes the outside receiver. They switched. So that’s the gist of it. However, as you probably noticed, this boundary-side combination was Clifford’s primary read, his “frontside/playside” read…and we’re here to talk about “backside” switch routes because we predict they’ll play a grander role in Penn State’s passing attack this upcoming season now that Drew Allar is in command.

So what’s a backside switch concept then?

Backside switch routes are SECONDARY reads, not PRIMARY reads for the quarterback. In other words, they are “attachment” routes that only come into play when the QB spits on his first two looks and proceeds to his third progression. Like this:

Notice Clifford’s head here. In this 2×2 look (4 WRs, 2 on each side..it’ll make sense when we get a full-field sideline angle in a bit. Hang tight), his eyes initially glance left to the playside – his primary reads. Not liking what he’s seeing, Clifford flips to the other side of the field – the backside – and finds KLS streaking deep for a big gain. OK, now that we got playside/backside cleared up, let’s examine what the hell is going on here.

At the bottom of your frame, 13-KLS and 3-Parker Washington are the backside switch receivers. At the top of your frame, 5-Jahan Dotson and 86-Brenton Strange are the primary reads in this 2×2 alignment. Strange runs a slot fade against a DB  surrendering tons of cushion, so that’s a no-go for Clifford. Hard to tell what the heck Dotson is supposed to be running here because he gets jammed up at the line of scrimmage, so that route is off the table for Clifford, too.

Time to look backside.

Once Washington and KLS “switch” they are now running vertical read routes inside imaginary “tubes.” Washington’s “tube” extends from the sideline to the numbers. KLS’s tube extends from the numbers to the hash marks. Once inside the tube, the receiver has a plethora of route options to run. We’re gonna simplify those route options in the next paragraph, but before we do, we wanted to post this screen grab from June Jones’ (a Run and Shoot disciple himself) 2013 SMU playbook to illustrate just how many choices receivers have when running switch. Again, that’s the brilliance of the Run and Shoot…a handful of concepts on paper look like dozens of different plays on film.

Dumbing things down, once inside the “tube” the receiver and QB must determine whether the tube is “capped” – meaning there’s a third-level defender at the top of the tube – or “uncapped” – meaning there’s no one between you and the end zone. If your tube is capped, like Washington’s tube is here, the receiver breaks off the route and stops. If your tube is uncapped, like KLS’s tube is here, you keep stretching vertically.

Actually, there are more nuances involved for the post-snap inside receiver (pre-snap outside receiver). Once inside his tube, and once he’s determined coverage, he can bend/adjust his route to heighten the odds of a successful play. For instance, if the post-snap inside receiver reads that the safeties are playing Cover 2 – meaning the middle of the field is open – he can adjust his vertical route into a post or skinny post, thus leaving his tube, to exploit the unoccupied portion of the field. Furthermore, if the post-snap inside receiver is running inside a capped tube but there’s a second-level defender playing zone who is obstructing the passing window, the receiver can bend inside to create a clean passing lane. Here’s a great example of just that from 2021:

Very basic Cover 3 look from Ohio State. 5-Dotson (bottom of the screen) recognizes that the third-level defender, OSU CB 7-Sevyn Banks is playing over the top. He also recognizes that the second-level defender in his tube, 14-Ronnie Hickman, is positioned right in the middle of the passing lane…so Dotson bends inside until Hickman is out of the picture.

Execution

If it seems like this blog post has a lot less clips than our usual blog posts, well, there’s a reason for that: Penn State wasn’t very good on pass plays featuring a backside switch attachment over the past two seasons. And that’s got a lot to do with Sean Clifford.

As you might have heard over the course of Clifford’s six-year college career, Penn State’s all-time passing leader really struggled cycling through progressions. Granted, Clifford did get a touch better at this basic tenet of quarterbacking the older he got, but he certainly never mastered it. And since backside switch routes require a QB to advance to their third progression, there were a couple instances where Clifford left sure TDs on the table because he was so fixated on his primary target.

It appears that Clifford’s primary read on this play action pass is 86-Brenton Strange…the thought being that if the Michigan linebackers bite on the fake toss to 24-Keyvone Lee it’ll open up the middle of the field for Strange. A half-second into the play, it’s obvious Michigan LB 12-Josh Ross didn’t take the bait…yet Clifford still eyeballs Strange longer than necessary for some reason. Clifford eventually moves to his second read, 5-Jahan Dotson, once he feels pressure. Dotson is Waffle House-smothered here. Panicked, Clifford throws it to him anyway…completely unaware that 3-Parker Washington is uncovered on the backside switch. Penn State settled for a field goal on this drive.

In a limited sample size, we’ve been fairly impressed with how quickly Allar’s internal computer processes information post-snap.

Last one:

Woof.

Gold-star sticker goes to the Penn State pass protectors on this play. Hell, Clifford has enough time in the pocket to start-up and sell another do-nothing NIL company back there. No rush. No hurry. Plenty of time for the 6th-year Van Wilder QB to make the right read and the right throw. Except he doesn’t. After rejecting his primary playside options, Clifford turns to the other side of the field where there’s a choice soooooo obvious even fictitious animated actor Rainier Wolfcastle could see it post-acid scald after his goggles did nothing. THROW THE DAMN BALL TO TINSLEY! He’s blown by Purdue tree stump 23-Cory Trice for what would be a layup TD. Instead, Clifford tosses it up to a blanketed slow-footed tight end in a capped tube for reasons that still escape us six months later.