Hokie Hitter: Stanford

The Hokies won in commanding fashion 31-7 over the Stanford Cardinal this past Saturday in Palo Alto.  In this game, the Hokies expanded their playbook and opened up some new concepts in the passing game.  This week I'm going to look in depth at some of those new concepts and why they were so successful this past weekend.

This is a concept that personally, I have wanted to see the Hokies run more of all season. Tech ran this concept many times during the game.  It's a “levels” concept sometimes referred to as “waggle” or “bootleg” where the defensive backfield is being stressed by having three receivers at three different depths with a route on the backside of the play. On this play the Hokies use play action to hold the linebackers and roll Drones to the left side.  Stephen Gosnell runs a go route, and Felton runs an arrow route taking care of the deep and short levels.  Jaylin Lane runs a “whip” route at the middle level and thanks to the secondary taking away the low and high reads, Lane is open in the middle for a big gain on the opening drive.  This is a simple concept that when executed properly, as the Hokies did last week can really open up the passing game and put secondaries in distress.

All season the Hokies have seen a two high safety look and teams have played a lot of zone or matchup zone coverage on the backend.  One thing I had hoped to see this season was the use of passing concepts to press the middle of the field and exploit this coverage.  On this play, the Hokies use a play action double post concept against a zone blitz look for a huge gain.  Ayden Greene clears the secondary and allows Stephen Gosnell to follow behind him and Drones has excellent protection and time in the pocket to allow the route to develop.  This is an excellent example of what Drones can accomplish in the pocket when given time in the pocket.