Why Cal Poly’s Misdirection Plays were so Effective against Weber State

owenmain — Fri, 17 Oct 2014 19:31:44 +0000

It’s a super unusual circumstance, but periodically I’m really impressed with something someone writes on a message board. Last night, I read something on a Cal Poly football message board that struck me as exceptional — something others needed to see.

I requested, and received permission to re-purpose a post by Nick Wynne. He initially titled it, “Misdirection: A Play in Three Acts.” Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Cal Poly’s triple option offense was dominant against Southern Utah and has really been running on all cylinders for the past month or so. Weber State coaches surely watched game film and took some chances. Here’s how it went down: (OM)

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By: Nick Wynne

Prologue:

Cal Poly is driving down the field to end the first half vs. Weber State, down 14-10. Thus far, the running game has been somewhat stagnant, as the Wildcats are swarming to the ball. Poly faces a 3rd and 4 from the WSU 11 with 33 seconds left. Offensive coordinator Saga Tuitele calls in a relatively simple play action pass.

Go to 2:42 in the highlight video above. The player circled above is Weber State Linebacker, #44 Emmett Tela. Tela’s assignment on this play is Kori Garcia, in the right slotback postion. As the ball is snapped, Brandon Howe fakes a straight fullback dive (not even the option kind). In truth, it’s not a great play fake — Chris Brown doesn’t turn the right way — but it’s still enough to completely fool Tela, who bites up to tackle Howe. Meanwhile, Garcia slips through the line to the left flat. By the time Tela realizes his mistake…

Yup…probably not going to get there. Up in the coaches box, Saga strokes his chin and says “Hmm….

Act 1:

11 minutes into the 3rd quarter, Poly is continuing to have difficulties on the ground due to the Wildcats’ over-pursuing the play. On their first drive of the second half, Brown fumbles an option pitch to Howe in the face of overwhelming Wildcat pressure. On the opening play of the second drive…

Go to 3:12 of the video. Circled above is WSU safety #23 Trevon Johnson. The Wildcats have brought him up to the box to try and stop the Poly run game, and on this play, Johnson has weak-side responsibility. The play looks like a routine triple option towards the boundary. Instead of maintaining his assignment, Johnson dashes toward the right sideline in hopes of cutting off the play. By the time he realizes what’s happening…

…it’s too late. Poor dude even trips over his own feet trying to reverse course, and then when he finally gets to Jackson, misses the tackle.

Act II:

Unfortunately for Cal Poly, the previous drive is cut short by more Wildcat pressure, this time in the form of a sack. Facing a 3rd and 4 on the next drive, Saga decides to once again see if he can catch Weber cheating.

Go to 3:57 in the video. This time the safety with weak-side responsibility is #32 Jawian Harrison. Poly shows play-action off of a simple power O hand-off. Harrison…well, to be honest, I’m not quite sure what Harrison is doing. He goes with Austin Albison, who is lined up in the wing, despite the fact that two other Wildcats pick up the receiver. Maybe he remembered from film session that Poly ran a similar play to Albison for 28 yards vs Portland State, and went to the big TE for a touchdown two weeks ago vs SUU? Either way, he once again leaves the weak side completely open…

I would have circled him in this picture, but dude’s not even in the frame. Those poor offensive linemen have no one to block! Harrison does end up making the tackle, but it’s 46 yards down the field.

Act III:

Three plays later, Poly faces a 3rd and 4 from the WSU 23, after a couple of runs are stuffed by more over-pursuit. Time to go back to the “bag of tricks”.

Go to 4:25 of the video. This time, it’s WSU linebacker, #11 Luke King with the weakside responsibility (give Weber credit — they showed Poly a lot of different looks in terms of personnel). Maybe the first tip-off for the defense should have been the formation — I can hardly recall Poly running anything out of a bunch right. That just screams gimmick. Anyway, it’s a power sweep right, surprise surprise, and Mr. King sees a huge 3rd down stop in his future…

Uh oh. Seriously, even if you haven’t been following along with the video (and honestly, at this point, I’ll be happy if any of you are still reading this long post) you should at least go to 4:30 and watch poor Luke trot after Chris Brown, knowing full well that he blew his assignment. The sadness is almost palpable — I want to set it to that song from Charlie Brown Christmas.

So, the tl:dr summary is: WSU cheated up to stop the run with a safety. They also over-pursued plays, hoping to limit Poly’s ability to get to the corner. Largely, they were successful in this scheme, but when Saga and/or Tim Walsh realized this, they went to their reserve of misdirection plays, burning the Wildcats, and securing the victory for Poly. As Walsh said this week: “There were reasons to run those plays…against Weber State, and they were obviously fairly successful.”

Fin

You can find Nick’s original post here.

analysis – Fansmanship

Why Cal Poly’s Misdirection Plays were so Effective against Weber State

Prologue:

Act 1:

Act II:

Act III: