Film Look: Two Takeaways from OSU’s Road Victory in Ames

Oklahoma State ended its two-game losing streak with a 34-27 road win in Ames, Iowa this past Saturday.  The Cowboy offense ran only 55 total plays, compared to ISU’s 88, but three 50-plus yard touchdowns (and some help from the defense) allowed the Pokes to head back to Stillwater with a victory.

Below I’ll cover my key takeaways from the OSU offense this past weekend.

WR Screens and the Trips Formation

After facing Jon Heacock-led Cyclone defenses the past several seasons, the Cowboys had an idea of what ISU wanted to do this past Saturday. They were going to come out in a three defensive linemen front, and they like to drop eight men into coverage and rush the opposing quarterback with those three guys.

The Cyclones will give up the short throws underneath, and take away the long ball with their deep safeties, as shown in the example below from 365 Schemes.

In addition, they like to blitz their linebackers, leaving holes in the middle of the field. Last season, Iowa State was able to record 7 sacks, and the Cowboys didn’t do a good enough job of combating this with quick route concepts (slants, quick outs, etc.), running back screens or tunnel/bubble screens to the wide receivers.

However, when they did, they found success.

Well, this year, the Cowboys decided to go to the wide receiver screen game early and often, and it worked out in their favor, as shown on the Tylan Wallace touchdown below.

And, it wasn’t just this incredible run after the catch by Wallace that made these screens work, it was also the game plan from offensive coordinator Sean Gleeson. You can see in the clip above from last season’s matchup that OSU found success out of the trips formation, meaning three wide receivers lining up on the same side of the field. To ensure ISU couldn’t key on the screens, they also ran Chuba out of this look, as you see on the zone run below.

Additionally, as we saw last week with Baylor and the week before against Texas Tech, teams don’t want to leave Wallace one-on-one with no safety help.  In the following clip, we see the Bears daring Oklahoma State to beat them on the backside.

But, this week, the Pokes decided to combat this by lining up in trips to one side and leaving Wallace as the lone receiver on the opposite side of the field. The Cyclones still moved a safety over the top of Wallace as extra help, leaving three defenders and three receivers on the trips side. You’ll see in the video below, one of those defenders blitzes, and then the Pokes have three-on-two, as the play results in a Braydon Johnson touchdown.

They also ran a screen to Chuba Hubbard out of this look.

Things got a little stale at times in the second half, but overall, I really liked the Cowboys game plan with their trips sets and getting the wide receiver screen game involved.

Creativity in the Running Game

We’ve seen OSU lean on the zone running game with Hubbard heavily this season. I’m not holding it against Gleeson because Chuba is having a monster year, but it’s nice to see some different concepts in the Cowboy rushing attack every now and then. And, although it wasn’t a lot, I feel like we definitely got some of that this past weekend.

The first thing I wanted to touch on is Bash. The Tape Doesn’t Lie Podcast guys and I spoke a little about this play after the game. Bash stands for ” back away” and is a play in which the quarterback and the running back (or wide receiver in jet sweep motion), switch responsibilities. The QB will follow the primary run blocking, and the RB/WR will run away from the blocking around the outside.  This play is something Gleeson brought with him from Princeton, and the Cowboys ran it several times on Saturday.

In the first clip below, you’ll see the offensive line block to the right as Spencer Sanders hands off to Hubbard around the left side.

In this next clip you’ll see Sanders keep it himself.

Neither of these plays went for large games, but they contributed to the overall game plan out of the trips formation and kept the Iowa State defense on their toes.

The Pokes also added in some quarterback runs, as shown in the clip below.

Gleeson also got pulling linemen involved.

Again, not a successful play here — and I still think they can do more to mix things up in the running game — but the fact that we are starting to see some more of the creative stuff Gleeson did at Princeton is at least promising.