Play Of The (other) Day: Bash Pin & Pull vs. Wisconsin

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Wildcat is a popular nickname for high school and college athletic teams across the United States. And two months through the second installment of this in-season weekly series, Wildcat has been the most popular topic of discussion.

Penn State OC Andy Kotelnicki has whipped out Wildcat so often this season, that the uncommon formation isn’t really a surprise anymore. Especially with your starting QB hurt, it makes sense to make little tweaks within base concepts to create some distortion on the defensive side.

For the last few years, the pin & pull run scheme has been a staple of the PSU offense. With athletic offensive linemen capable of getting out in space and skill players that are able to pin the edge, it would be brainless to not utilize this scheme. Coach Kotelnicki put some flavor on this base concept which helped seal the deal in Camp Randall. Let’s break down the Wildcat-Bash-Pin-&-Pull play.

Concept on Paper:

Kotelnicki called this play twice – let’s look at the first attempt and see what went wrong.

For starters, PSU aligns in a simple 12 personnel “Wing Slot” formation. Off the bat, this is a tough formation to defend because the passing strength is on one side of the formation, while the run strength is on the opposite side. In this specific run scheme, the “pullers” aren’t determined until the defense sets the front. The OL must communicate and establish prior to the snap. Different teams coach this play different ways, but usually the checklist for the OL is something similar to this:

• Am I playside?

• If so, is there anyone in my “down gap” (towards the center)

• If the answers are Yes and No, respectively, you pull.

Once you are established as a puller, your job is to get around the edge ASAP and hunt out defenders inside-out.

Again, without knowing exactly how they coach this play, we don’t know for sure: but I’d be shocked if they’re still told to chase defenders inside that take themselves out of the play, like our left guard does here. If he blocks #7 (the defender who makes the tackle), instead of the edge defender who squeezes down with Tyler Warren, this play is a massive gash. Kotelnicki realized this, and came back to it later…

Now the backfield action, the RB and QB swap spots before the snap, which definitely causes the defense’s guard to go up off the bat. As for the “BASH” action, this means the “back” goes away from the run scheme. In this situation, the “back” is technically the QB. Typically, there would be an option to hand to the bash, but it appears the flash fake is simply just eye candy on this play.

Due to PSU being on the left hash, Wisconsin decides to have help to the wide side of the field, thus shifting the defense to the right. This is a much clearer look for the OL. Warren pins the edge, the playside tackle clears the path on the outside while the center seals up the interior.

The Wisconsin backside defenders hesitating because of Pribula’s running prowess certainly helped, as well.