Tulsa, out of their 11 personnel tries to run one of their favorite concepts in the slot (“snag”, which is essentially a clear out deep vertical/corner route out of the slot with a drag/buzz route underneath it) against an Oklahoma front in their odd front 335 look with two linebackers on the edge threatening pressure.
This fake pressure turns into a 3 man rush, underneath zone coverage with man coverage behind it and works like a charm, as the idea here is to show pressure/stress the quarterback into making a quick pre snap read on where he wants to take it and then jump anything short, which Stutsman does here to great effect. This isn’t quite what we consider a “trap” coverage at the pro level (which involves a corner jumping a quick out route with a blitz in the quarterbacks face and a safety behind him) but it’s almost the same effect. Create stress and jump a passing lane.
Peanut butter and Jelly, Drake stoops and buzz/flat routes. Some combinations are just classic. 12 personnel with wing left, stoops into motion gets the defense flowing sideways in a true man coverage, but this time the motion isn’t the bait, it’s the play. The creativity in this particular route is actually super subtle but great. As you watch the play develop, watch the defender covering Drake right at the snap - Drake starts to close the distance vertically between himself and the defender, and because of this, the defender has to honor this movement by slightly breaking down, as it’s impossible to tell if Drake is going to push this route towards the back of the end zone - but the second the defender moves to breakdown his feet, Drake just continues running flat, effectively never giving the defender a chance to win the foot race. Coupled with a quick sprint out by DG to give himself a better throwing angle, this attack on space doesn’t even require any window dressing and just uses angles to beat a defender, and theirs truly no one better for the route than a shifty Drake Stoops.
GT counter can be a bit of a sore topic for some Sooner fans as it was an absolute staple in the last regiments playbook, but nevertheless it’s still an effective counter run play in the tool belt of any offense. Here, out of 11 personnel and facing an odd front, the Sooners have some trouble executing it, and it all boils down to an odd fit by a SAM linebacker and poor vision at finding the immediate threat at the second level.
I have always been of the opinion that GT counter is particularly more effective against an even front as the rules are more clearly defined; the guard kicks the immediate perimeter threat in the unblocked defensive end, and the tackle takes on the linebacker in a traditional power lead look. Against an odd front the rules can get a little warped but the principal has to stay the same, the guard has to clear the immediate threat at the line of scrimmage with the tackle taking on the 2nd/3rd level threat to spring the running back for a big play. In this particular example Byrd really needs to wrap around this hard to take on the SAM line backer and let Rouse take the safety filling the alley; but because of some very odd steps by the linebacker, Byrd misses him completely and Rouse is in a position to where he can’t actually make the block from that angle.
It’s a tough situation for the Sooner OG/OT pair here, simply because the guard normally kicks out the perimeter with the tackle leading up the hole, generally making him the one on the linebacker, but because of the odd front and the aforementioned false steps the linebacker took it ended with a perfect gap for him to fill and stymied a run play that should of popped for much more. This is where the principles of the play come in, the guard has to neutral the immediate threat first with the tackle taking the intermediate threat, it was just unfortunate that those threats presented themselves in a unique and rare situation this time.
As the defensive secondary has started to mesh and meld better than we saw last season, we are still not completely free of mental lapses. On this play out of 11 personnel in a slot - Y cover look (effectively a trips look) Tulsa runs a Levels concept here with 3 receivers all running the same dig pattern at various levels, and Billy B completely bails on his zone to move towards a receiver Kanak already has covered here.
Assigning blame here can be tough as the communication between Bowman and Bowen is clearly not here but ultimately Bowman has to wear this one as he is the veteran in the room and on the back end he has to ensure his young guy has his coverage straight whether he’s in the flats or locked on a man call. Without this lapse though the coverage on the whole would of been very sound and would of resulted in a negative play, still a big advancement from last year where at times the entire back end of the defense was in discombobulation. It is also a sign of the coaching staff, who mainly called cover 3 variants last year, has opened the playbook to more complicated quarter and 2 man matching coverages this year which are a fair bit more complicated. The defensive playbook is developing, but the growing pains will still continue in my opinion.
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