Monday, September 5, 2011

It wasn't a reverse, it wasn't a counter...it was a basic sweep.

I have seen so many things written about Boykin's run, ignoring completely what it was. People are trying to make it into some trick play, something that was completely out of the gameplan. It wasn't.

We lined up in Trips left, with a fullback and WR to the right. Then, Boykin shifted down to the HB position, where Murray waited only a moment to allow Boykin to set his feet before calling for the snap. Boykin immediately took the hand-off and ran to the right, led by his fullback, Bruce Figgins, who got on the edge and made the key block on the outside linebacker. Wooten had run his guy downfield. There was now no one left to make a play on speedster Boykin as he ran around the end. Then, he cut back inside of BSU CB #4 and was able to out-leg him to the endzone.

It was not a counter. There was no fake to the left.

It was not a reverse. There was a single handoff and the blocking was set up in front of him.

It was not an end-around. He came from the RB position.

It really wasn't even a Jet Sweep because he started from dead-still, instead of in-motion.

This was a sweep with Boykin at HB instead of Crowell or Samuel.

Now, I have also seen people question why, with the success of that play, we didn't go back to something off that sort of look. That's a question worth asking. For my money, I think sometime in the third or fourth quarter, we should have put Boykin back in that position, shifted him down to HB, and run a playaction to Mitchell or Orson Charles. There's no way everyone would have ignored the guy who popped them for 80 yards earlier in the game.

But, I'm no football coach.

Go Dawgs.

2 comments:

Holla said...

Thank you for this, Ben!

MBM said...

Very good point on that play. And a very good question--Why didn't we at least try to use that as a decoy in the 2nd half? Found you through The Senator...been enjoying the hell out of your stuff, man!