Chalk Talk: The Play That Made Bob Stitt Famous

In early January of 2012, then-broadcast analyst Jon Gruden was perplexed at what he was seeing on the field in front of him.

“Well it’s an interesting play out of the shotgun,” Gruden explained to play-by-play man Mike Tirico on the broadcast. “I think it’s snapped right back to Geno Smith who just flips it like a volleyball to [Tavon] Austin.”

“How cool is this play,” Ron Jawarski added in the second quarter after Tavon Austin scored for his third time on it. “I mean, you talk about creativity.”

This play, a variation of the traditional jet sweep, was ingenious for two reasons. First of all, the exchange takes much less time than a handoff. This allows the motion man to receive the ball in full stride running across the formation. Second, if the player drops the ball on the exchange, it’s an incompletion and not fumble since the exchange is technically a forward pass.

The play was all the analysts could talk about during the broadcast, after the game and on subsequent shows. After the game, West Virginia head coach Dana Holgorsen credited his friend Bob Stitt, who was at Colorado School of Mines at the time, for the play. It quickly took college by storm, with multiple spread teams incorporating it into their own offense the following year. There were even teams that Holgorsen had stopped at, like Houston and Oklahoma State, who were already using it in their offenses.

Stitt, a well-respected figure of the air raid, created the play in the early 2000s and used it extensively with the Orediggers. He used the jet action fairly frequently at both CSM and Montana and created a jet series with both his run game and base passing concepts.

“The fly sweep wasn’t new,” Stitt said in a 2015 ESPN interview. “Putting the ball in the air was just our twist on it … If the timing is off, it’s incomplete if they drop it. If the snap is off a little bit, you can still tap it to him.”

Many play callers now use the action and pair it with another run play. Even with a handoff to the back, using a jet motion adds misdirection to the play. By handing the ball off with the jet action, it forces the linebackers to ignore the motion and play the movement of the lineman.

That way, when the quarterback does see a leverage advantage on the perimeter and flips it, the defense often doesn’t realize it until the ball carrier is well upfield. Because the ball carrier receives the ball in full stride, it allows him to outrun practically anyone, especially those in the tackle box who would start from a standstill.

The Cowboys occasionally still use the play, although they rarely ever flip it to the receiver when paired with another run play. They’ve gone through a jet sweep identity crisis ever since Tyreek Hill came onto the scene, sometimes handing it off and sometimes flipping it, sometimes trying to pull lineman and oftentimes blocking it like an outside zone (which often helps the defense read the lineman and rally to the ball).

Stitt’s new position with OSU should do nothing but help the Cowboys. Many are convinced he’s the offensive coordinator in waiting, but I’m not so sure. Either way, he’ll likely have some influence, however small, on the offense, and his coveted fly sweep is one specific action that I’d love to see return full-time.