Texas Longhorns Offense Against Missouri: Football is hard

by HenryJames on Oct 28, 2009 2:27 PM CDT in Texas Longhorns and Other Football

We’re back! Sort of. Our offense actually looked really good for a half and pretty good for a quarter. Lots of small reasons and one big reason. Small reasons include Malcolm Williams in the starting lineup, moving Jordan Shipley back to the slot and the fact that the Missouri secondary was uniformly dumb.

But the biggest reason that the offense was successful is that we decided that using play action is legal. Once we decided that it was, it allowed us to actually use our tendencies against the Missouri defense.

So let’s take a look at a few plays that show how using play action helped us.

1. First play of the game. Shipley in the slot left with a linebacker over him (really, Missouri?). We fake our zone play to Fozzy, and the linebacker over Shipley takes a few steps playside. Shipley runs a short out, and then easily jukes the linebacker who is out of position. Thirty yards later Shipley is tackled. Now most of it was a great play by Shipley, but you can use play action to make it easier for Colt to get him the ball.

2. Second and goal on the same drive. The play before we ran Cody Johnson on our zone play. The Missouri strong safety comes up hard, but Johnson shakes him off. Next play we use play action (flow, no fake), the strong safety gets caught in no man’s land after coming up and Shipley scores untouched.

3. Next drive on 3rd and 2 at the Missouri 20. We bring in Lamarr Houston and Johnson for our jumbo set. The weakside defensive end crashes at the snap of the ball, but McCoy fakes it and rolls out instead with Antwan Cobb blocking. Easy first down.

4. Next drive 1st and 10 from the Missouri 34. We again fake our zone play to Johnson, but McCoy rolls away from it. All three Missouri linebackers crash leaving a wide open Jordan Shipley to drag the vacated zone behind them. But the strong safety has come up as well, and so there is no deep help for the corner on John Chiles. Easy td.

Football is hard.

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Comments

I agree with all points except for the egregious feminization of CODY Johnson’s name. He is all that is man.

by bighornfan32 on Oct 28, 2009 2:35 PM CDT reply actions

Over the last 11 years, some of our best gameplans have come the week after OU. Funny how that works.

by nordberg on Oct 28, 2009 2:40 PM CDT reply actions

“Codi” sounds like a stripper from Dayton in need of serious dental work.

by hornshornshorns on Oct 28, 2009 2:43 PM CDT reply actions

For the first half of those 11 years it was after we lost to OU, now we just seem to be messing with the second half of our schedule.

by milksteak on Oct 28, 2009 2:45 PM CDT reply actions

Play action sounds so naughty and dirty, like foreplay and college football playoffs.

And finger-banging pimps.

by texoz on Oct 28, 2009 3:13 PM CDT reply actions

But…but…but…we HAVE to withhold any semblance of misdirection, play-fakes, etc. from our offense the entire first half of the season in order to hide it all from OU. OU’s coaches, after all, have no long-term memory and immediately forget we have those things in our playbook the day after our annual game in Dallas. So we trick-fool ’em every danged time!

At least, that’s what I’ve heard.

Hook ’em!!!

by EyesOfTX on Oct 28, 2009 3:25 PM CDT reply actions

it allowed us to actually use our tendencies against the Missouri defense.

This drives me effing insane.

by The General on Oct 28, 2009 4:00 PM CDT reply actions

C’mon General, we couldn’t do that kind of stuff pre-OU because…. um…..um….. because it might have kept OU on their heels, and prevented 14 kill shots on Colt in the 1st half? I don’t know.

by nordberg on Oct 28, 2009 4:13 PM CDT reply actions

14 kill shots on Colt can only be good for his Heisman campaign.

14 kill shots … ? … profit!

by milksteak on Oct 28, 2009 4:31 PM CDT reply actions

It is kind of funny that GD always forgets how talented our players are. As though every offensive wrinkle that works must be immediately filed away and saved for a rainy day so it will be a “secret” next time it’s used. You know, because counters and screens are so secretive.

by ghostofagroundgame on Oct 28, 2009 4:34 PM CDT reply actions

It would work even better if we ran the ball more. I think it was only 14 combined carries (9 for Fozz, 5 for Cody) between the co-starters. Let’s commit just a little more to it.

by magnusbleuveigner on Oct 28, 2009 5:21 PM CDT reply actions

I’m waiting for HJ’s treatise on cosplay action.

by CrazyJoeDavola on Oct 28, 2009 5:23 PM CDT reply actions

Play action, like the pump fake, represents unsound football.

Or so I’ve heard.

by Levander Williams on Oct 28, 2009 6:21 PM CDT reply actions

Funny how the run game works better when you have a fullback who can actually block.

The weakside defensive end crashes at the snap of the ball, but McCoy fakes it and rolls out instead with Antwan Cobb blocking. Easy first down.

That play is actually designed to be a flare to Cobb, but when the LB picked him up, they did a nice job of adjusting to the defense and got an easy first down.

by srr50 on Oct 28, 2009 6:34 PM CDT reply actions

Yep.

by HenryJames on Oct 28, 2009 6:38 PM CDT reply actions

Can we move the Texas State Fair up so the OU game is the first of the season?

by Woody Bombay on Oct 28, 2009 8:09 PM CDT reply actions

By the way, where the hell is Scipio’s thoughts? I’m a crackhead without the crack.

by bighornfan32 on Oct 28, 2009 10:23 PM CDT reply actions

Waiting on Clipper’s thoughts as well—there are some nice golf courses near Stillwater

by UPS driver on Oct 29, 2009 11:54 AM CDT reply actions

I’m still wondering what Davis’ fat little girlfriend thinks.

by spider on Oct 29, 2009 12:27 PM CDT reply actions

Playcalling and strategy stuff is hard if you were born without a brain.

by ransomstoddard on Oct 29, 2009 1:04 PM CDT reply actions

Mizzou was giving the big buffer to the UT WRs because the Mizzou DBs were not fast enough to stay with the speedy UT WRs. The Mizzou safeties were also between a rock and a hard place: they had to respect the UT running game and be ready to provide run support while still needing to provide over the top help on UT’s WRs.

The group of teams that can defend UT like OU did is very small. Unfortunately, Alabama and Florida are in that group.

The reason that play action was effective was because UT had a viable running attack so the fake run had to be respected. UT running has been effective ever since UT started playing a real TE fulltime.

There was a number 7 playing for UT who was so elusive and fast that he got wide open behind the entire Mizzou defense for a TD but it must have been Beasley, not Chiles. My reasoning is that Scipio has pronounced Chiles to be irrelevant, so that could not have been Chiles making the big play.

Speaking of Scipio, we may not see a Mizzou-UT writeup from him. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor.

by kafka on Oct 29, 2009 1:56 PM CDT reply actions