Film Look: QB Running Game Sees Success Against Mountaineers

Oklahoma State pulled out the win in their final home game of the 2018 season over the West Virginia Mountaineers. The Cowboys were trailing 14-31 heading into the half, but outscored WVU 31-10 on their way to victory.

The Pokes were able to rush for 266 yards on 43 attempts, which is an outstanding 6.2 yards per carry. In addition, a good chunk of these yards were picked up by Taylor Cornelius.

Cornelius finished the day with 106 rushing yards on 13 attempts along with a touchdown. If you remove the two sacks by the West Virginia defense, TC only had one rush that didn’t go for over five yards. He was able to find success on designed quarterback runs, scrambling outside the pocket and on the zone-read. Below I wanted to show examples of each.

Scrambling

When Corn couldn’t find anything open downfield and he started to feel pressure from the WVU pass rush, he did a great job of tucking the ball and picking up yards with his legs.

In the clip below you a designed roll out. The Mountaineers have solid coverage down field and as Cornelius gets close to the sideline, with a defender breathing down his neck, he decides to tuck the ball and dart upfield for a nice pickup on first down. Also, smart move by Corn to slide here and avoid contact.

Next we see TC pick up the big first down in the fourth quarter to get into West Virginia territory. He has to step up in the pocket due to left tackle Dylan Galloway having trouble with his block. With the linebacker following Chuba Hubbard out to the flat, the middle of the field is wide open for Corn to take off. Would’ve preferred a slide here as well, but sometimes it’s fun to watch a 6-6, 232-pound quarterback truck stick defenders to end a run.

Designed Quarterback Runs

Cornelius had success on the quarterback draw a couple of times in this game, as he has pretty much all season.

In the video above, you can see the motion to the trips side of the formation from Hubbard draws the Mountaineer linebackers to the top of the screen. In addition, the 4i-technique defensive end in WVU’s Tite front slants inside. Corn is able to blow right by the inside slant from that defensive lineman and the Cowboy offensive linemen only have one secondary level defender to block. Corn gets about 9 yards before he’s touched and then is able to fight his way for the first down.

Zone-Read

There were a few times in the first half where I thought Taylor should’ve kept the ball based on his read. However, in the final two quarters I thought he did a much better job of taking what the defense gave him on these plays.

In this video, you see WVU is aligned in their Tite front again.

The West Virginia defensive end shoots inside off the snap towards the zone run to the top of the screen. This wouldn’t be a big issue if it weren’t for the fact that all three linebackers follow in this direction as well. No one is left to contain the quarterback keep and TC has a huge alley which leads to a first down for the Pokes.

It worked again in this clip as Corn keeps for a fourth quarter touchdown.

The defensive linemen, linebackers and middle safety all crash on the zone run to bottom of the screen. Additionally, the two of the WVU defensive backs are occupied with the wide receiver screen. TC reads this slight hop inside by the defensive end to the top of the screen and decides to keep it himself.

By the time the a West Virginia defender is able to get there it’s too late as Corn barrels into the end zone.

Finally, after multiple big gains on Cornelius keeps in the second half, the WVU defensive end and linebacker finally decide to stay home.

However, TC again makes a great read and this time hands the ball to Hubbard for a huge gain. Backup center Ry Schneider makes a nice block at the second level and then Chuba is off to the races.

TC has been impressive all season as a runner and showed it again on Saturday. It’s something different than we are used to seeing from the OSU quarterback position as Mason Rudolph wasn’t as skilled of a runner as Cornelius is.