Oklahoma State vs Baylor Offensive Analysis

Well, well, well. What a pleasant surprise from the Oklahoma State Cowboys. An emphatic 49-17 win over the #4 team in the nation on national television, with Baylor's first three points made possible by an OSU player tripping and the last two TD's in garbage time, mind you. Still, on the orange (or in this case, black) offensive side of the ball, there was a lot of new stuff put in by this Cowboy coaching staff. Let's take a look. 

A large part of this week's offensive performance includes the use of fullback Kye Staley. Staley was put into the game plan with new variations of formations already put in place. 

Flashback to a couple weeks ago when I made a note about the offset backs to the left and right of Chelf. A comment was made saying that this indicates that the up-back farthest from the line of scrimmage has the potential for an inside zone threat. Well now they officially added that threat to the .offense

Take a look at the picture below. Notice how Staley is slightly behind Chelf, with Roland behind him. 

The play that they used out of this formation was a crossbuck, where the "buck", or alternate fullback (I believe it's Veach on this play), blocks across the line of scrimmage to the backside, while the ball carrier runs to the opposite direction of that back. 

Here's the basis of a crossbuck (left), with its origins coming from old single wing football (right).

This play set up for a deep play action pass downfield

You can't exactly see what's going on receiver-wise, so here's a quick diagram of the play:

Any play action out of the full house usually has a two or three man route scheme. Here, the X is running a cross and the Z (Marcell Ateman) is running a corner route (route to the closest corner of the end zone). 

The second thing that we will take a look at is the revived jet sweep package. When closely examining this wrinkle, you can notice that the Cowboys run multiple variations of the jet sweep. They can run a zone read with the jet-man, where the quarterback actually initiates a mesh (he puts the ball into the belly of the back), they can run an inside zone play to the halfback off of the jet motion, or they can run a jet shovel play, where the quarterback receives the snap and quick tosses it to the man motioning in front of him. It's interesting to note that they have play action passes off of all three. On their second touchdown, they ran a play action pass of of the jet inside zone for a Charlie Moore touchdown. 

This play was eerily similar to the game-clinching pass in the 2011 Fiesta Bowl

(see 5:59. Or don't.)

And before we go, it wouldn't be right to ignore the two beautiful trick plays the Cowboys used. 

The first one that we'll talk about is their reverse pass from Moore to Moore. Charlie Moore has passed a couple of times this season, and I put emphasis on the word "pass" because he never looks to take off after given the opportunity to chunk it downfield. I believe they have ran this play, or some variation of it, earlier in the season.

here, it's an off tackle to Jeremy Smith, who pitches it to Charlie Moore coming the other way, who then looks for Tracy Moore on the right sideline off of the wheel route. Well covered by the Baylor Bears, but still, a well executed play by the Cowboys.

And the final play, in which I've saved the best for last. The quarterback throwback, which was done last year against OU and more notably, according to Dave Hunziker, was ran 25 years ago when Barry Sanders threw it back to Mike Gundy on a trick play, was beautifully executed by the Cowboys. 

A successful trick play requires practice and proper execution, with an attention to detail in every aspect of the play. 

I want you to notice not only how well Stewart throws the ball back to Chelf, but how the lineman carry out their blocks. On most OSU screen plays, with the exception of the slip screen and the tunnel screen, the offensive lineman carry out a variation of the crab block, where they all drop to the ground and prevent the defensive lineman from getting to the play. Here, the lineman all drop to the ground faking the crab block, and then quickly get to the outside in anticipation for the throwback. This is not easy to do, folks. It takes a lot of energy, especially for a lineman, to drop, get back up, and get upfield to block.

Well, although this is an offensive blog, it's also important to appreciate the defensive efforts of the OSU defense. Holding an explosive Baylor offense to 17 points, with most of those being after the game was decided, is to be acknowledged. Hopefully, there will be similar results for Bedlam in two weeks. Until then, keep lovin' football.