Film Look: OSU’s Use of Two-Back Formations against K-State

Oklahoma State suffered their second loss in a row this past weekend to the Kansas State Wildcats. The Cowboys’ 311 total yards on offense was well below their season average of 493 yards per game. In addition, the Pokes posted a season-low 12 points this past Saturday and couldn’t get into any real rhythm on the offensive side of the ball.

Even though there were a lot of negative takeaways from last weekend’s game, I wanted to focus on one positive element… two-back formations.

One of my biggest complaints from the loss against Iowa State was the lack of creativity the Cowboys showed on offense. After running multiple plays out of two-running back formations against the Kansas Jayhawks, the Pokes almost went completely away from these looks against the Cyclones.

However, by my count, Oklahoma State lined up in a formation featuring two running backs on nearly 21 percent of their total plays. Additionally, aside from a holding penalty, a couple of instances of poor blocking, a poor throw and a drop, almost all of these plays went for positive yardage. The Pokes utilized the running backs in the passing game and ran a lot of fly sweep motion, both things I had clamored for in my takeaway post from a week ago.

The first play I wanted to highlight shows Chuba Hubbard and Justice Hill lined up in a split-back formation with two receivers to Taylor Cornelius’ left and one to his right. Inside receiver Dillon Stoner motions across the field and fakes the fly sweep. You can see the K-State defender lined up across from Stoner follow him on the motion. Both Wildcat linebackers stay in the box to defend against the inside run from Hill. This allows Cornelius to make an easy throw out to Hubbard in the open field, which is where the young running back excels. KSU cornerback Duke Shelley likely saves a touchdown with a nice tackle.

This run-pass option does a great job of stretching the K-State defense horizontally. Which is OSU offensive analyst Bob Stitt’s specialty as we saw in from his time at Montana.

Next we see basically the same play, although this time it’s Hill in Hubbard’s role, J.D. King in Hill’s role and Landon Wolf in Stoner’s role. The KSU linebackers follow Wolf on his motion to the right side. Seeing this, TC makes his read and hands it off to King on the inside run for a solid gain. The swing pass to Hill was open too, just a solid all around concept.

We also saw Oklahoma State utilize two running backs and a Cowboy Back in the Diamond formation. In the video below you see one strength of this particular formation… creating a one-on-one matchup on the outside. Kansas State loads the box with eight defenders to combat the run threat, which leaves talented OSU receiver Tyron Johnson one-on-one with a Wildcat defensive back. TC gets the ball quickly to Johnson in space, and he picks up the first down.

This time the Cowboys run a zone-read out of the Diamond formation. TC reads the end here and sees him crash down on the run fake to Hill, so he pulls the ball back and takes off around the outside. King is looking for an “arc” block here as he leads the way for Cornelius up field. With solid blocks from Britton Abbott and tackle Teven Jenkins, TC is able to break this for a big gain.

The last clip I’ll show out of the Diamond formation is this roll out pass to King in the third quarter. Oklahoma State gets a majority of the KSU defenders to follow the lineman and Hill to the left, as Cornelius fakes the handoff and rolls back out to his right. He hits King in the flat for a nice gain on first-and-goal. I really like this play because it gets a playmaker like King is space, sends a solid blocker out with him in Abbott and allows TC to throw on the run which is something we’ve seen him do fairly comfortably all season.

I wrote a piece in August discussing four concepts I would like to see from the Oklahoma State offense in 2018. The first topic I covered was two-running back sets. When you have the amount of talent the Cowboys do at this position, you have to figure out ways to get those guys on the field. As shown above, these looks put the defense in many different types of conflicts, especially when the fly sweep motion and diamond packages are incorporated.

I hope to see Mike Yurcich continue to run plays out of these formations throughout the remainder of the season. Some of OSU’s best drives on Saturday, although there weren’t many, came using a lot of two-running back sets.