Play of the (Other) Day: Scissors Concept vs. West Virginia

Harrison “Trey” Wallace got the glory, but credit a former 5-star who had no targets on Saturday as the reason the first TD of the Kotelnicki Era happened when it did.

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Before you type in the comments section that I’m being hyperbolic when I say witnessing Penn State’s fun, innovative offensive portfolio on Saturday was like a personal spiritual revival, let me remind you of this:

You weren’t assigned to drill and extract interesting X’s and O’s nuggets from the “dry hole” that was Mike Yurcich’s playsheet on a weekly basis last year. I was. And unlike creepy 8-figure CEOs or Buffalo Bills fans, I derive no pleasure from pain.

What can’t be disputed, though, is that offensive explosivity is BACK in Happy Valley. Amongst offensive coordinators making their blue-and-white debuts in the James Franklin era, Andy Kotelnicki’s 7.62 yards per play average vs. West Virginia ranked No. 1 – almost a full yard better than runner-up John Donovan’s per play showing vs. UCF in Ireland a decade ago. So, yeah, it was refreshing to see some chunk plays, daydream of what may be, and irrationally formulate a bunch of feel-good, too-early overreactions from those explosives as a fan.

For this blog post, we’ll focus on the first of two 50-yard completions 15-Drew Allar tallied in Morgantown – a Scissors concept to 6-Harrison “Trey” Wallace that was executed to perfection (cough, sort of.)

PSU comes out in a pseudo-condensed 2×2 formation. The man of the hour five hours, Wallace, gets things started with what’s called a ‘Yo-Yo’ motion. This purposeful back-and-forth accomplishes 3 things: It provides the QB/OC some coverage clues, allows Wallace to gain leverage of his choosing, and ensures a free release.

While Scissors isn’t always paired with play-action, the added wrinkle accomplishes something here. The flash-fake and guard-pull “trap protection” sucks up the backers, compressing the second level of the defense. On the backside, 5-Omari Evans runs a corner-stop route to occupy the corner responsible for that deep-third.

Now, the meat and potatoes: 3-Julian Fleming is key here. He must run a corner route as fast as he can to capture the 1-high safety’s + his deep-third CB’s attention. Wallace’s job is to simply “follow the paper trail” of Fleming and break to the post after he clears out.

Let me refer back to the beginning of this article, when I claimed this play was “sort of” executed to perfection. Here’s why: Scissors is typically designed to exploit split-field coverages (2-high safety structures). So, this isn’t a “beater” against this particular look. On paper, WVU should be able to lock up this play in their Cover 3: the deep-third CBs swallow up Evans & Fleming, and the “post safety” handles Wallace.

So why does this work then?!?!?!

Good question, lazy transition device. The answer: Fleming.

The Ohio State transfer threatens the WVU 1-high safety with sooooo much speed and doesn’t tip his route (is he going to break to the middle of the field eventually?), that the dropping middle-field defender has no choice but to keep retreating backward — creating a large void between him and the backers. In other words, a “cracked-open window” for Allar’s throw to Wallace. If Fleming isn’t foot-to-floor during his route, none of this works.

Watch again:

The other obvious key aspect is the absolute SEED from Allar. If this throw is too low, a backer could get a hand on it, if it has too much touch, the bailing safety has an opportunity to make a play on it.