In 2002, Rich Rodriguez made the zone-read-bubble a popular scheme and opened the door to the world of two-or-three-in-one plays. Most recently Dana Holgorsen has popularized the stick-draw scheme as a great way to attack the defense and put players in space with the ball. Holgorsen’s version of the play has the quarterback reading the front side inside linebacker. If the backer expands to the stick, the quarterback will turn and hand the ball to the running back. If the linebacker does not expand, he will throw the stick route.
In this video the linebacker expands and the quarterback turns and hands the ball to the running back.
The tight view shows the offensive line blocking the draw scheme. The tackles and the right guard take their normal pass sets. The center blocks down and the left guard folds around for the linebacker.
Prior to 2012, our stick concept was purely quick game. Our outside receivers ran F.O.R or forced outside release verticals, and our inside receivers ran 4-5-6 outs. On their fourth step, they started rolling to the flat so that on their sixth step they were running parallel to the line of scrimmage. We would run this concept from 3 x 1 spread formations, 2 x 2 spread formations, and 3 x 1 with a TE. Our adjustment when we would run it with a TE is that he would have a pivot route instead of a 4-5-6 out. On the backside of any 3 x 1 formation, the quarterback could signal an individual route to the receiver. Video of the stick play is below.
At the end of 2011, we had some success running a quarterback lead draw with our line blocking a variation of our inside zone scheme and the running back leading up on the linebacker.
The blocking scheme can be better viewed from the end zone. The center and right guard are blocking their zone combination on the 1 technique to the linebacker. The left guard and tackles pass set and influence the defensive line upfield. The running back becomes a lead blocker for the remaining linebacker.
What we did notice defenses doing was expanding the Mike linebacker out of the box quickly to cover the inside stick route. This left a visible void in the defense.
From the tight view, the space left voided by the expanding linebacker can clearly be seen.
In 2012, we used our own version of the stick draw at Baldwin Wallace University. Self-study taught us that there was an opportunity to better attack the defense when they reacted to stop our stick play. After learning more about the stick-draw and watching cut ups of how cleanly Oklahoma State was able to attack the void in the defense, we saw an opportunity to combine our quarterback lead draw with our stick play in our own version of the stick-draw.
Entering the 2012 season, we knew we wanted to use the stick-draw. We also knew that we did not want to add a blocking scheme or concept to what we already had. In addition, we did not want to add to the exchange mechanics of the quarterback and running back, and, to us, the ball handling and timing seemed tricky. We knew it would take some investment of reps and practice time to perfect.
We felt the quarterback running the draw had two benefits. First, because there was not a concern with turning and handing the ball, the timing and ability to read the linebacker allowed for a split second more for him to expand to the stick and open up the running lane. Secondly, the quarterback’s vision of the running lane would be cleaner than the back who would have to come from behind in the pistol to receive the hand off.
In the first video, the linebacker sits in the box allowing us to throw to the inside receiver.
In the next clip, the linebacker expands to the stick leaving the quarterback a void to run into.
The tight view shows the blocking scheme which we were previously using on our zone lead draw. We get a great combination on the 1 technique and the running back gets through to the linebacker.
Furthermore, we realized the potential for this packaged concept to expand to our empty formation. With our runner in the stick-draw being the quarterback, there was no need to create anything new for our empty formation.
This play has opened up our thought process to combining plays, and we experimented with several other two-in-one plays that I imagine at some point will become a part of what we do. This is because our quarterback, who was more of a drop back passer, will be replaced by quarterback(s) who can execute the read and run game well. The concept of isolating a key defender and making him wrong every time has great potential. I am sure that this is a trend that will continue with our offense. It also seems that these types of plays fit very well into an uptempo context. Running these types of plays at the fastest tempos should generate some vanilla looks from the defense. Being able to clearly isolate a defender and quickly attack him provides great benefits to an offense that wants to keep moving the ball down the field with plays that are simple to execute, yet difficult to defend.