Play(s) Of The (other) Day: ‘Fun with Fat Guys’ vs. Illinois

On Saturday, Penn State offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki peeled back another layer of his funky onion by placing big faces in strange places.

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If you’ve spent the last 48 hours wondering why Penn State offensive coordinatory Andy Kotelnicki lined up the Nittany Lions’ offensive line every possible way other than the standard way, you’re in the right place.

To spare you another article about 44-Tyler Warren playing QB, we’re gonna spend this time analyzing a couple ways PSU used the OL alignment to create cheap yardage and baffle the defense.

Play 1 on paper:

Play 1 on tape:

Look close (admittedly TV broadcast film isn’t the best ‘teach tape’).

Notice how there’s only 1 linemen to the left of the center? That’s because the standard left tackle, 66-Drew Shelton, is on the other side of the line — thus creating a “tackle over” formation.

Looks cool, right? But what’s the point?

Well, the desired outcome from the offense’s POV is hopefully the defense can’t figure out how to line up properly, a gap goes unfilled, and 10-Nicholas Singleton can ran forever. For the defense, the simple solution to this odd formation is just to treat the original right guard as the new center and set the front based on that. Illinois does a good job of that here  — as an “odd front” team, you are always going to have a “0 technique,” meaning a nose guard right on top of the center. That explains why PSU’s RG, 77-Sal Wormley, has a man head-up.

So, one might logically surmise, Illinois has this under control, right? Not so fast.

PSU sends WR 6-Harrison Wallace across, creating a trips set that kicks an Illini corner out on “smoke screen” duty. All together, that motion creates a triple option scheme: 1. Wide zone to the right 2. If the DE crashes hard, 15-Drew Allar can keep it himself or 3. “Pitch” to 2-Liam Clifford on the perimeter.

Why does this matter? Scroll up and rewatch. Check out the cutback lane created from the read player focusing on Allar. Because the front is shifted over and the QB/RB alignments stay the same, it makes it naturally easier to get to the backside. If the PSU LG 71-Vega Ioane washed his defender down instead of perfectly executing a backside cutoff block (this is exactly what he is supposed to do), Singleton may take it for 6.

Play 2 on paper:

Play 2 on tape:

Whether you were at home or in Beaver Stadium, did you notice how on some plays the right or left tackle was somewhat isolated, lined up all the way outside of the creamery? Well, there’s a reason. In the play we clipped, Kotelnicki puts the RT 68-Anthony Donkoh about 5 yards from the RG. If you’ve read an FTB article before, you know that defensive schemes are based around “rules,” For example… an edge defender’s “rules” might tell him to be an outside shade of the tackle — but what if the tackle is lined up in the slot? Guess they forgot to cover that one in practice this week (as did every other team in the country).

If the defender will line up out there with you, why not use it to create an abundance of space? Scheme wise, this is just midline zone read. Instead of reading the edge defender, 9-Beau Pribula read the 5-technique defensive tackle. Cheap yardage created from unorthodox formations.