Football plays are generally identified by a series of letters, numbers and seemingly random words, but a small handful grow beyond that into legend and earn more memorable names. King Right 64 Y Shallow Swap is one of the greatest OSU plays this century. You may remember is as “Holy Buckeye.”
A basic outside zone play in New Orleans went “85 Yards Through The Heart Of The South.”
After Saturday’s 39-38 win over #2 Penn State, enterprising Columbus T-shirt companies may want to work on a snappy nickname for 8-17 Y seam.
With the Buckeyes trailing 38-33, the clock running under two minutes and the ball at the Penn State 16, that play went from looking like measurements for a particularly uncomfortable pair of pants to a season-saving touchdown.
J.T. Barrett took the snap. Terry McLaurin settled down in the flat, drawing one defender. K.J. Hill raced up the numbers, attracting the attention of a safety, who had to decide whether to go with Hill or tight end Marcus Baugh, who was sprinting up the seam, just a couple yards inside Hill. The safety chose to go with Hill. The other safety was worried about Binjiman Victor on the wide side of the field, and ran the other way.
A linebacker dropped into coverage, but Baugh raced past him and turned to look for the ball as he passed the 5 yard line. Barrett read the defense, realized Baugh was open, and threw it just over the outstretched arms of that PSU linebacker and into Baugh’s hands.
The Buckeyes had their first lead of the day with just 1:48 left in the game. Game saved. Big Ten title hopes saved. Playoff dreams alive.
“I saw the linebacker, I think it was 43, I was, like, J, just put it over the linebacker and we score,” said Barrett after the game.
Barrett said they only began practicing the play on Wednesday, but thought that those three receivers – McLaurin, Hill, and Baugh – would present a very simple math problem to the two outside Penn State defenders on that side of the field.
“They play cover two in the boundary. (The safety) has got two guys running up on him, so your guy’s gotta make a decision. And then the play action definitely helped. But I mean, I’m looking at the safety to see which one he picks because whoever he does he’s wrong,” said Barrett.
“O-line did their part and bargained with the play action. That was a gap play-action pass and that’s a tough thing to do, especially against those guys. And they did their part, and I threw it to a wide-open person.”
Baugh said he was pretty sure he knew where the ball was going, even before the snap.
“I had a good feeling it would come to me, just how the defense was,” Baugh said.
Once he turned and saw the ball in the air, he had just one thought, “Catch it.”
“It was a good ball, great positioning. Gotta catch it. People forget I dropped the first one. So I had to catch it,” Baugh said.
Monday, after 8-17 Y seam worked its magic to save the season, Urban Meyer admitted that his initial reaction was not, “I can’t wait to see this on a T-shirt.”
“When it was called over the headset, I won’t tell you what I said,” Meyer recalled. “Because I thought it was going to be a blitz-fest down there. And they didn’t blitz. That was perfect for the defense, what they called.”
Meyer said offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson and QB coach Ryan Day came to him with the play earlier in the week.
“I can’t remember who came up with it. But I kind of have to give the approval and look at it, and they say what do you think,” Meyer said. “They’re not co-coordinators, they’re both coordinators and they’re both feeding off of each other good. Very smart, very aggressive. That’s what I like about them as opposed to I have to be the aggressive guy. They’re very good.”
Herman was very good at designing and scheming plays like this. Beck and Warriner, not so much. It is great having real offensive minds and real offensive coordinators back in control.
The deficiencies of Beck and Warner went well beyond just play calling and execution. JTB lost fundamental skills as well as WR’s. The entire O lacked any sort of creativity or solid execution. OSU won games due to talent, not O skill and design. Your last sentence is dead on and week by week we see that becoming more and more appaerent!
It was a great play, be the D stop after the fumble and the block punt and JTB’s hot streak placed us in that situation. Earlier in the game JTB had a few other receivers open including Baugh and missed them, but we saw him and our O grow up to a whole new level and if they continue this, they will be a very hard team to compete against and even beat.