Play of the (other) Day: Y-Hide vs. Iowa
As in football as in life, the best-laid schemes…something, something, something. Sorry, we never read the poem.
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Not that the Nittany Lions needed to do anything too fancy, but Penn State offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich called a pretty methodical, vanilla game – which, I suppose, is a fitting flavor for a White Out.
Tasked with scoring one point (1!) to best the stacked-on-cinderblocks, front-lawn jalopy that is Brian Ferentz’s offensive attack (double entendre), Penn State’s bland recipe for success leaned on its beefy blockers to win at the line of scrimmage, stacked bruising-but-boring drive-sustaining runs, and tossed in an occasional play-action opportunity in the Red Zone to boost QB Drew Allar’s stat line.
Don’t worry, though, we managed to find a hint of spice in Penn State’s gameplan vs. Iowa…although, it’s technically reheated X’s and O’s leftovers from 2022. Oh, and it didn’t work as planned. Sorry.
Ladies and gentlemen, we give you Y-Hide:
And here’s the play with actual humans running it:
4th and 1. Prime T Formation down and distance, right?. Sure enough, Yurcich wheels out three tight ends (a subpackage we labeled ‘TRIDENT’ back in 2021) hoping to bait Iowa into countering with its short-yardage personnel, which would take a defensive back off the field and almost force them into playing man coverage. The Hawkeyes don’t bite. They stay in their base defense, making this play choice far from ideal.
Initially, Penn State lines up in their DIAMOND FORMATION (Not the T) before shifting the sidecar TEs — 84-Theo Johnson & 44-Tyler Warren — down to wing positions. You’ll recall, we saw this same shift out of Diamond in the Rose Bowl last year (see below):
I’ll be honest…of all the different Yurcich pre-snap movements I’ve studied, this particular shift has been a bit of a Rubik’s Cube for me. I’ve struggled to find the true purpose of this shift. My best guess is that it enables the two tight ends to threaten the edges more because the angles are better. But again, I’m not 100 percent sure.
Anyway, once shifted, Johnson gets a running start from “escort motion” before executing an arrow route to the flat. That option, though, is off the table for Allar since the Hawkeyes are playing zone/match coverage – the man responsible for guarding Johnson doesn’t have to follow him across the formation. Allar moves to Option 2: Warren running the Y-Hide route.
Penn State fans might remember that Yurcich first unwrapped Y-Hide after shifting out of the T Formation (another 3-TE alignment) last year at Rutgers midway through the 2nd Quarter. Notice the pre-snap look and post-snap design – nearly identical formation, same route concept.
Again, first read (10-Singleton) taken away. The second read, 44-Warren, was in his own zip code after selling his block long enough to convince the defense he wasn’t running a route.
On Saturday, however, Iowa had a cloud corner who would have had the easiest Pick-6 in the history of football if Allar tossed the Hide route. Therefore, Allar progressed to Plan C or D – the two high-crossers, 16-Khalil Dinkins or 1-KeAndre Lambert-Smith.
The backside safety “matches” to KLS, which creates a foot race between Dinkins and the other Iowa safety. The separation is modest. The pass from Allar, though, is precise – a perfectly-placed laser that can’t be defended.
