Plays of the (other) Day: 3rd Down and 1 Woes vs. Ohio State
Sponsor: For The Blogy’s 2023 football coverage is brought to you by Happy Valley United – the NIL collective representing every Penn State student-athlete. CLICK HERE to join the team and pledge your support.
While it’s impossible to place the entire blame for Saturday’s kick-in-the-shins performance against Ohio State on one person or thing, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that a better 3rd-down showing (like even a D+ showing) might have made the difference in a one-score game. In situations that required a singular yard, specifically, the Nittany Lions repeatedly shot themselves in the foot with a mix of mental and physical errors.
Tomorrow, Coach Codutti will cycle through all 16 Penn State 3rd-down scenarios in his weekly Film Study, but since we’re gluttons for pain, here’s a small taste before the main course arrives late Monday night.
Sigh
Hold your nose. Here we go.
First example. 3rd and 1 from the minus 46. PSU comes out in 12 personnel (1 RB, 2 TE…pretty much it’s base package) and aligns 3×1 closed (meaning the solo “1” in the 3×1 is a tight end attached to the line of scrimmage).
Upon lining up, Penn State QB 15-Drew Allar immediately recognizes Cover 0 and checks to max protection and a two-man “rub” concept orchestrated by 6-Harrison Wallace and 1-KeAndre Lambert-Smith. On paper, this is a home run. With no deep safety and 9 box defenders, if the rub concept wins – which it technically does! — KLS is doing cartwheels en route to the end zone. Of course, “on paper” does not always sprout fruit when applied “on field.” It is never that simple in the game of football — just ask Pete Carroll and Marshawn Lynch.
With that said, the “rub” facet of this concept could not have been executed better. The post-snap routes cause the OSU DBs to collide without any threat of drawing an OPI flag. Brilliant. Via this “rub concept, Mike Yurcich has “manufactured” separation instead of hoping his wideouts created it organically. In other words, he schemed his guy open.
The roadblock, though, comes inside the box. Because there are essentially 9 blitzers on the play, the difficulty to complete a simple “dart” throw increases substantially since there aren’t enough blockers to engage with every pass rusher. Someone is gonna be unaccounted for. And unfortunately for Penn State, the unaccounted defender – Ohio State safety 41-Josh Proctor – sits smack-dab in Allar’s throwing alley and times his leap well. Batted ball. “On paper” turns to “on punt team.”
Some would argue a nice gap-scheme run from the T-Formation would be an ideal play suited for this particular down and distance. Counter to that argument, though, it’s tough to beat a Top 3 teams in the country at their place by playing it safe. If this hits, it’s 6 points. Rant over!
Next example. 3rd and 1 from the minus 11. 3rd quarter winding down, four-point game. Offense has been spinning its tires, so this HAS to be your best short-yardage play.
PSU brings in 23 personnel (2 RB, 3 TE…the third being 16-Khalil Dinkins, which answers the unasked question of whether the Nittany Lions had access to their typical T Formation personnel – they did). The play begins with a Quads bunch look to the top of the screen but then shifts to a spread formation.
In the past, Yurcich has shown this shift and run a similar play to get Singleton in full-speed motion against man coverage (someone even wrote an article about that play!). This play’s intent was to be a counterpunch off that concept from the Iowa game. Singleton runs a sloppy, uninspired “return” motion in hopes of gaining an edge by stressing the second-level defenders to hurriedly bump over in anticipation of him running across to the opposite flat. But because Singleton’s running this return motion at half-speed, the tactic doesn’t generate the desired result – as in, Ohio State’s linebackers aren’t forced to scramble and adjust.
STILL, in spite of all that, if Singleton catches this, he likely gets a yard. Not 10 yards…which was on the table if Singleton sold the motion better…but certainly one yard.
44-Tyler Warren crack blocks Singleton’s defender and leaves him 1v1 with a CB. Unlike Sex Panther cologne, 100 percent of the time this play should work every time…as long as the ball is caught, of course. While, again “on paper”, this is a clever play design that’s perfectly staged to produce the desired result of moving the chains, the fact that the ball must travel through the air attaches a “poison pill” low-percentage risk to this play call on a down and distance where risk doesn’t HAVE to come into the equation.
Leave a Comment