Film Look: Halftime Adjustments Led to Offensive Success

There were a lot of negative takeaways from Oklahoma State’s 31 – 35 loss to Baylor this past weekend. With the insane amount of penalty yards, the inability of the Cowboy defense to get a stop late and special teams woes, it wasn’t a great overall day in Waco for the Pokes. However, for my film takeaway this week, I wanted to focus on a positive from Saturday’s game… the second half offense.

In the first half, OSU had six total drives. The results from these drives are shown below.

• TD
• Punt
• Missed FG
• FG
• Punt
• Missed FG

It seemed Mike Yurcich’s game plan in the first half was to use 10 personnel (one running back and no tight end) and spread the Baylor defense out to run and exploit mismatches in the passing game. They ran 10 personnel on 66 percent of their first half plays. OSU only had two running back looks on 10 percent of those plays, and Jelani Woods only saw the field five times.

Yurcich also had the Pokes in a trips formation multiple times in the first half. It’s understandable as I’m sure he noticed watching film Baylor’s tendency to play zone to the three receiver side and have their backside defensive back in man coverage. Here’s an example from the Baylor/Duke game earlier this year where you see the one on one corner get beat and the Blue Devils wind up with six.

Yurcich believed Tylan Wallace and Tyron Johnson could expose their defenders when matched up one-on-one, and he was looking to exploit this early and often against the Bears. He wasn’t wrong as Oklahoma State was able to capitalize on these looks, as you can see in the clip below, but overall the offense just seemed too predictable during the first two quarters and it’s one of the main reasons they went into the half with only 10 points.

However, in the second half the game plan seemed to completely change and it resulted in the following drives (I didn’t include the last play of the game due to it being a desperation attempt to score).

• Punt
• Touchdown
• Touchdown
• Touchdown
• Downs

As you can see, the Cowboys were able to score on three of their five second half drives. In addition, they didn’t settle for field goals but were able to find the end zone and rack up 21 points in the final two quarters.

So, how were they able to do this?

Well, OSU went back to the things that had been working for them this season on the offensive side of the ball. Their percentage of two-back sets increased from 10 percent in the first half to a little over 17 percent in the second half, they threw in some 12 personnel sets and a 13 personnel set, Jelani Woods was on the field 15 times compared to the five mentioned above and OSU used more pre-snap motion to keep the defense on their toes.

They also did a great job of setting plays up. An example of this can be seen in the Tylan Wallace third quarter touchdown and then big fourth down conversion pass back to Taylor Cornelius.

First we’ll look at Tylan’s touchdown. The Cowboys come out in 12 personnel with Jelani Woods and Logan Carter split out to Taylor Cornelius’ right. On the other side of the field, Tyron Johnson is the outside receiver and Wallace is lined up in the slot, a little wrinkle as he’s normally lined up on the outside.

Before the snap, Wallace goes in motion behind TC. Corn takes the snap and throws the ball out on the swing pass to Wallace with running back Chuba Hubbard as the lead blocker. The offensive line cut blocks their respective defensive linemen, and with a solid block from Hubbard, Wallace is able to find the end zone. I really like having the two Cowboy Backs split out wide for additional blocking on the outside.

Next, we see the fourth down play. The Cowboys come out in the exact same look except now it’s Justice Hill in Hubbard’s spot. TC sends Wallace in the exact same motion as above, the offensive linemen again all cut block, but this time they get up off the ground and move out to the left to lead block on the throw back.

Wallace catches the pass, and he and Hill move out to the right the same as before, however this time Wallace plants and makes a throw back to Corn who has a wall of Cowboy linemen to run behind as he picks up a huge chunk of yards.

Additionally, we saw the two-back sets open things up in the running game, not only for the backs but for Corndog as well. The first clip shows Corn reading the defensive end to his side and giving the ball to Hill with J.D. King as the lead blocker.

In the next video we see the Baylor defense over commit to the Hill run, allowing Corn to keep it for a nice gain.

Finally, even though Jelani Woods didn’t make an impact on the stat sheet, his presence was felt on plays such as the one shown below. Woods releases from the H-back spot up the seam drawing the outside linebacker with him.

With the defensive back in off coverage on Wallace, and the linebacker not able to sink to his left as he’s watching Woods up the seam, it’s and easy pitch and catch for Cornelius as the Cowboys pick up the first down.

There were still times in the second half where the offense stalled, or got bailed out by a Baylor penalty, but overall a 21-point performance isn’t something to be dismissed. I was very impressed with the halftime adjustments made by the coaching staff and thought the Pokes did enough offensively in the final two quarters to leave Waco with a victory.