Play Of The (other) Day: GT Counter vs. Boise State

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58 Yards Through The Heart Of The Desert.

While the fate of the Fiesta Bowl wasn’t in much doubt midway through the 4^th Quarter, Nicholas Singleton’s punctuation-mark long touchdown run did officially put the Broncos to bed and entitled our digital audience to at least ONE MORE of these X’s and O’s breakdowns! Rejoice!

Therefore, let’s thoroughly dissect this iconic-ish, gap-scheme jaunt on GT Counter.

PLAY ON PAPER:

PLAY ON FILM:

For starters, this formation is unbalanced — the inline TE, 16-Khalil Dinkins, is ineligible as he is covered up by WR  5-Omari Evans. The other WR 6-Harrison Wallace is sent from the other side of the field in an “Orbit motion” to provide an outlet if the CB doesn’t trail him across. In this scenario, the CB travels, so Allar knows it is a give read.

Now, the scheme up front. Kotelnicki loves GT counter against this front due to the advantageous blocking angles presented. On the right side, there is only a “2i technique” and a “7 technique.” Here’s a chart for your reference:

This creates an easy “back block” for the Center and “backside cutoff/base block” for the backside TE because they already have leverage on these defenders. Long story short, the guard and tackle can pull essentially risk-free. That’s just the back side, though. What happens on the front side, however, is where it gets interesting.

Typically, the pulling guard will kick out the end man on the LOS and the tackle will wrap for the playside LB. Boise State tries to defend this scheme with a “Spill Scrape.”” This means the EMOL crashes down on the Guard and eliminates the point of attack (C-Gap), while the front side LB overlaps and sets the edge. 72-Nolan Rucci does an absolutely incredible job of recognizing this (although it was likely repped all week in practice) and gets a secondary kick out instead of over running it. Combine that with our front side Tackle, 66-Drew Shelton, getting up to the backside backer…this thing is busted wide open.