Film Look: ‘GT Counter’ Causes Problems for OSU Defense

The Oklahoma Sooners were able to rush for a season-high 353 yards on the ground against the Oklahoma State defense. OU running backs Kennedy Brooks and Trey Sermon accounted for 289 of these yards and one of the primary ways they found success was the GT counter.

I wrote about this play last week as one of the things to watch for from Oklahoma’s rushing attack. The GT counter, which involves pulling the backside guard and tackle (hence the “GT”), is very difficult to defend because the defenders now have to account for two gaps. The guard kicks out on the first defender he sees and the tackle leads through the hole looking for someone to block at the second level.

The Sooners found success with it on their very first play of the game with Sermon as you can see below. The OU play-side guard and tackle do a great job of blocking down and creating a wall, this allows the pullers to double team OSU’s Jordan Brailford, who is the only defender in the alley. Calvin Bundage takes his initial step away for the play, and gets caught up in the muck of the linemen, keeping him from getting to the edge quickly. Sermon is able to get to the outside and then it’s off to the races.

This time we see OU run the play with Brooks and hit it for a big gain again. The Sooners show a different look than the one above with both Brooks and Sermon in the backfield on this play. After the snap, Sermon and the two back-side pulling linemen lead the way for Brooks through the alley. A hole is formed between the down blocking play-side linemen and Sermon and the pullers kicking their defenders to the outside. Brooks hits the hole full speed and sees nothing but green grass between he and the end zone.

Now, the Cowboys were able to stop this play on occasion, as you can see Justin Phillips avoid the pulling tackle and stop Sermon at the line of scrimmage.

However, the Sooners’ ability to bust this play for big gains continued into the second half and was a problem for the OSU defense pretty much all day.

Lincoln Riley and the Oklahoma offense have found success on the GT counter all season long and it wasn’t any different against Oklahoma State on Saturday.