This Is A REALLY Cool Wrinkle For The Play Action Pass

Today I’m going to share one of my favorite wrinkles from the Cougars Pass game that anyone can use.

Before we get started, I’ll share a similar style breakdown of Coastal Carolina’s offense, full of information you won’t find anywhere else.

Click HERE and get your copy.

PA Outside Zone Wk H-Back Fold

The first time I saw BYU run this concept on film was against Houston, and that’s where today’s diagram comes from.

BYU didn’t invent this play, and they were not the only ones who ran it this past season either, but since I’ve been spending so much time watching their film I wanted to highlight their version of it.

To be clear, this pass was not completed, and we’ll get into why in just a moment, but it’s important that we separate the process from the result.

If you’ve been following me for awhile now, you’ll know that a good percentage of the plays I share in these emails may not work 100% of the time. I’m not interested in that, because even “the perfect play” doesn’t work every time.

Still, smart people understand that even though one particular instance of a play may be unsuccessful, there may be principles you can take from it to apply later on.

That’s what we have here.

If you run a lot of H-back sets, and even better, if you run a lot of outside zone to the open side of the formation, you should think about stealing this idea.

Take a look at the diagram below:

Illustration or image depicting the H-back executing the fold action inside the B-gap during a play. The image highlights the H-back dipping underneath the tackle, simulating his path as if he were searching for a block on the backside of a zone concept. This fold action serves as a convincing run tell for most defenders.

Explore a clever wrinkle to the Play Action Outside Zone with the H-Back Fold concept used by BYU, offering insights into how to keep defenses guessing and optimize offensive strategies for better results.

The H-Back is going to “fold” inside to the B-gap and simulate his path as if he was searching for someone on the backside of a zone concept to block. This is a scheme that BYU runs quite a bit, and the fold action, where the H-back dips underneath the tackle, is a really convincing run tell for most defenders.

However, instead of locking on to a linebacker, he’s going to slip up the middle of the field and try to split the safeties in the end zone.

This is a great concept on paper against a MOFO (Middle Of Field Open) look on defense. The idea is to sneak that guy right up the middle of the secondary before the safeties have a chance to recover. You just have to keep both of them occupied long enough to either side to make that happen.

In real life, the FS bit on the zone fake but had enough awareness to recover and contest the catch, and the SS wasn’t really threatened by the fade-out combination to the field. Zach Wilson threw a jump ball but that hole in the defense closed pretty quickly and the offense didn’t score.

So what can we learn from this?

This is very likely a one-man read for BYU. Unless the defense comes out in a single-high look that clouds up the middle of the field, this is pretty much always going to the H-Back.

What does that mean for the rest of the guys on the field? BYU probably should’ve designed the other routes to attack the safeties more aggressively.

For example, a smash concept, with the #2 receiver running a corner, gets him a lot closer to that SS, and would’ve done a much better job of holding him in place.

Similarly, to the opposite side, if the X had released inside with the idea of attracting attention from the FS, and then broken back out, it may have given the H-Back enough room to get clear for the score.

I’m not trying to second guess everything the coaching staff does (Hindsight is always 20/20). I think they did a tremendous job of putting their players in positions to win most of the time in 2020.

Still, when you see a play with some good principles fail, you should get into the habit of trying to figure out what worked and what didn’t, and just as importantly, what you can take from it to make your own team better.

This is a great idea for a pass play, and with a few tweaks within your own offense, it can be deadly.