2023 Season

Play of the (other) Day: RB Pop vs. Northwestern

Copyright David Banks - USA TODAY Sports

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To quote novelist Charles Dickens, It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…depending on what side of the number you were on.

Man, it had been a good 6 or 7 minutes since I saw something rile up and divide the always-sensible, level-headed Twitter/X community the way Penn State’s cleverly-designed, spread-covering 4th quarter TD pop pass from backup Beau Pribula to backup Trey Potts did. Oh boy, you were either BIG mad…

Or, um, whatever the opposite of BIG mad is (BIG happy?)…

Of course, BTN’s nameless, faceless, unseen rules analyst tossed a pile of oily rags on this degenerate rage inferno when he baselessly claimed the play should have been blown dead the moment Pribula simulated taking a knee…which is a preposterous statement for numerous reasons.

*There’s 2:26 on the clock, so you can’t just take 3 knees and peace out.

*Victory Formation kneel downs tend to have ‘safety’ players sidecar-ing the QB

*Victory Formation kneel downs tend to have a ‘safety’ player 6-8 yards behind the QB.

*Victory Formation kneel downs don’t include pulling guards.

*We’ve never seen a Victory Formation run from a 2×2 stacked alignment with wide splits.

No, this was a cool shot play made to resemble QB Power/Counter – end of story:

What’s perplexing about the BTN rules analyst’s commentary (which, BTN color commentator Jake Butt bravely refuted, by the way) is that Mike Yurcich didn’t pull some never-before-seen rabbit out of the hat here. Several teams execute similar deception…although many run it as an RPO. The principle remains the same, though.

Here’s a clip of former PSU OC Joe Moorhead (essentially) running it at Akron:

And here’s Penn State’s version from Saturday:

Statistically speaking, designed quarterback runs are much more likely with Pribula in the game. A lot of that has to do with the fact that PSU is normally in chew-clock, 4-minute offense mode when he is subbed in…but the other part is that Pribula is an extremely talented athlete and dual-threat QB. Northwestern’s defense knew this…and Yurcich knew Northwestern’s defense knew this, which is why he correctly assumed they’d trigger hard on a pulling guard (77-Sal Wormley).

As we typed earlier, the Nittany Lions come out in a 2×2 formation with wide, stacked splits – presumably to lighten the box and widen the safeties, who now have more ground to cover thanks to the slot receivers being as wide as the wideouts. At the snap, the pulling guard causes the “Mike” backer to immediately trigger his run fit… Why? Probably because Beau has already run QB counter close to a dozen times this season.

Pribula “dips/lunges” to further sell run and “get lost” behind the 300-pounders in front of him. To prevent a potential illegal man downfield that sometimes happens in the RPO game, the OL is in their full-slide-trap-pass-protection (that’s at least what I would call it) — a common protection for shot plays.

On the perimeter, Penn State runs a form of a “smash” concept to occupy the safeties and provide a check down if somehow Potts is covered. This design gives the Minnesota transfer a free release up the middle of the hashes, and his first career receiving touchdown as a Nittany Lion.

To further sell the QB run fake, though, Potts bluffs a “stalk” block before releasing into his route. Coincidentally, one of our favorite bluff stalk blocks in recent Penn State history occurred in this same end zone back in 2017 when Tommy Stevens hauled in this TD from Trace McSorley.

October 1, 2023by FTB Shane