2018 Purdue vs Ohio State
4 Plays that sprung the upset- and how you can use them yourself.
As the summer winds down and we get ready for our own season I wanted to find a way to dive into more football and share it with others at the same time. I will periodically be posting a series of 3-5 plays from an old football game and breaking them down a bit. At the same time I’ll be dropping in some other football knowledge, coaching hacks, or just some other general things I’ve seen recently. My goal is to keep them all short reads- 5-8 minutes tops- and share some more football that may have snuck under the radar at the time. As we get into our high school season I will do less- but I also do not plan on charging at this time.
I have a completely ridiculous amount of football film/ games saved on my computer. I wanted something to keep me watching it and putting it to use… so I decided to start this. I’m going to pick a random game, click through it, find a handful of plays to post, and then talk about them. Randomly I picked 2018 Purdue vs Ohio State to start this thing off. No reason, no particular meaning behind it, but let’s dive in.
The first play is a special teams play. It’s not a huge gain, its not a super sexy or creative play, but in a game of this magnitude for Purdue, it was huge because it set up a touchdown to end the half. Purdue had the chance to make it a 10 point game going into the half and instead they chose to risk it. When you are the underdog, you sometimes have to make moves like this to give yourself a chance to win. It paid off huge as it got them a first down and set them up for the following play to put them up 14-3.
The very next play Purdue attacked Ohio State’s man to man defense. Ohio State played heavy man to man this game and Purdue went after them in a lot of different ways. They motion the running back to get from an empty set to a set with a lead blocker. They use the press man coverage in the red zone to cause interference and it opens up the slot receiver for an easy walk in touchdown. A great concept (even if defended poorly) for any red zone attack.
This next play is a heads up call, and possibly a check by Purdue. It’s 3rd and 9, you know the Buckeyes are bringing pressure and you probably don’t have a lot of great pass options when they know you need 10 yards. Instead they check to a trap play with the middle of the field wide open and not a linebacker in sight. This is a great call that creases the defense for a huge touchdown. You see Kyle Shanahan do the same thing as they did in the 2019 NFC Championship game vs the Green Bay Packers.
Before I get to my final few plays- a little shout out to Bobby Peters who released a handful of new books. I grabbed the two above and I love the simplicity of these to find the plays in the all 22 film or the game highlights on youtube what not, but they are simple reads that let you learn a lot of scheme and steal a few concepts for your own use, or just learn a lot more about football. I highly recommend his work!
As we start to bring this ship in for a landing, we know that Jeff Brohm always has a trick play up his sleeve. Here he goes with a reverse off of a speed option look with a fullback and receiver leading the way along with a pulling guard. It keeps Ohio State on their toes and helps to pick up a first down in the 4th quarter as the Boilermakers try to salt it away.
Finally we see another way that Purdue took advantage of Ohio State’s man coverage. Purdue put their electric (and now NFL/ Arizona Cardinal) Rondell Moore at running back and found a creative way to get him the ball. Knowing that the Buckeyes were in man to man they threw a bubble to Moore while cracking with their receivers to account for the man who was trying to cover Moore. Add in some poor tackling and this sealed the deal for the Boilermakers upset of the #2 Buckeyes.
I hope you enjoyed this, I hope you subscribe and stop back for more of my mini-breakdowns and I hope they give you some ideas that you can use with your team or help you gain a little bit more knowledge about what you are watching when you watch the game. If there are any games you’d like to see, drop them in the comments and I’ll see what I can do!