Play of the (other) Day: Halfback Option vs. Illinois

Penn State offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich continues to show he’s a softy for these century-old classic concepts

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If you had third-string Penn State running back Trey Potts throwing a balloon ball touchdown on your Saturday bingo card this week, well, A) You drew the worst bingo card in the history of bingo and B) You’re one lucky SOB.

In all seriousness, there are few things more satisfying than a perfectly executed gadget play. The fact that Penn State offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich only dialed up 4 variations of them last season (throwback screen, flea flicker, end around, double pass) made this unexpected rabbit-out-of-the-hat even sweeter.

While it’s completely reasonable for fans to assume Yurcich’s thought process when deciding whether or not to dial up a halfback option (RB has the option to run or pass) late in the 3^rd Quarter of a nine-point game was, “You know what? Screw it,” this was actually a calculated and set-up play choice.

Let’s dissect the most fun PSU TD of the young season, shall we?

To uncover the roots of this unorthodox play choice, we need to dig all the way back to the Nittany Lions first play from scrimmage:

12 Personnel (two tight ends, one running back). Shotgun 2X2 set. What’s unique about this particular formation, though, is that both tight ends are split out to the same side of the field – the boundary. That alignment likely signaled to Illinois’ defenders – whether they gameplanned for this specific look or not – that Penn State would probably run right, toward the 500 pounds of twitchy, athletic mass. Sure enough, they were correct.

The Lions run a poorly-executed pin & pull/toss crack concept for one yard. While the minimal gain wasn’t ideal, the unusual alignment planted a seed that Yurcich would exploit 2-ish hours later.

Let’s fast-forward now. 3^rd Quarter. 1^st and 10 in the Red Zone.

Exact same look. In fact, you can almost see the imaginary lightbulbs pop up over every Illinois defender’s head. They’re running right! The toss!

Eh, not quite.

Illinois is playing a Cover-1 Match defense, meaning a cornerback is responsible for covering 44-Tyler Warren. The key to this play for Penn State is patience. Warren has to fake his crack block without setting off any alarms in the DB’s head…making this look juuust believable enough that the corner triggers hard to stop the run. Sure enough, he does. At this point, there’s one player left who can stop this play – the centerfield safety 10-Miles Scott. This is where play design is crucial. Pulling linemen put stress on second- and third-level run fitters, and, here, the pulling guard around the edge signals to Scott that this is 100% a run – especially after seeing it once before.

Now, my immediate question when viewing this sorcery in real-time was, “Why Mr. Potts?” From my personal experience playing lower-level college football (a whole different world from P5 football) there was usually a “tryout” period/competition for trick plays like this during practice – like American Idol…but with facemasks.

Turns out, the process for Penn State was far less formal than I suspected – a happy accident, a modern-day version of the Lisa Simpson hockey goalie origin story.

Finally, a fun fact: According to 2018 New York Times article, the halfback option pass originated in 1910 at the College of Emporia in Kansas when head coach Homer Woodson Hargiss had halfback Wayne “Twisty” Granger routinely fake a run then throw the ball.

As the article’s author Bill Pennington wrote: How can you not believe any story with a protagonist named Twisty?