Break It Down: The Run and Shoot?

Back in the '80's and early 90's, the run and shoot offense swept through all levels of football like a wild fire. The wide open, pass first, spread offense led to a ton of points being put on the board, a number of records being broken and a lot of angry defenses, including the ones of the teams running it. In the mid '90's, defensive coordinators (Bob Davie, who was at Texas A&M at the time, in particular) finally figured out how to stop this offense by using zone blitzes. The zone blitzes confused opposing quarterbacks and threw off the on the fly route adjustments the offense relies so heavily on, and that, along with the burden the pass heavy offense put on your own defense led to the offense's demise.

The offense is not completely dead, however. June Jones still runs the offense at SMU, and you will still see some concepts of it in other offenses. One such place where you will still see these concepts is upstate with the New York Giants. Their offensive coordinator Kevin Gillbride was once a run and shoot guy and he still uses some of the shoot concepts with Eli Manning and company.

This past Saturday in their win over Syracuse, Rutgers deployed one of the offense's bread and butter plays, the switch route, for a big gain to set up a touchdown. On a first and 10 on Syracuse's 44 yard line, Dave Brock opened it up and called for the switch route. Rutgers lined up in a single back formation on this play, with twins receivers to the right, and two tight ends to the left. Syracuse came out in base personnel, lined up in a 4-3. (Video, click to enlarge)

Syracuse runs a common zone blitz, with the two outside backers blitzing and the rest of the defense playing cover three behind it. Either Nova or center Betim Bujari identify this blitz, and slide the protection to the right, with both tighends and the running back staying in to block the left side. The blitz is picked up easily, and Nova has plenty of time to throw.

The switch route is intended to beat the defense deep, similar to an all verticals play, but with a twist. The outside receiver and the inside receivers will "switch" paths while running down the field, causing confusion for the defense and hopefully getting a rub (or pick depending on your perspective) on one of the defensive backs. This is Eli Manning and Victor Cruz's money play, and Gary Nova and Brandon Coleman executed the play almost as well.

The outside receiver, Mark Harrison in this case, starts his route to the inside, and runs a go up the seam. The corner defending the outer deep third to the offense's right follows him inside, despite the safety being there, leaving the sideline vulnerable. Brandon Coleman, lined up to the inside in the slot, runs right past the flat defender on a semi-wheel route, and breaks vertically down the sideline. With the corner following Harrison, Coleman is open in the vacated zone. The corner recovers a bit, but Nova throws a nice deep ball, hitting Coleman in stride before he gets there. The corner is able to bring Coleman down before the endzone, but not before a 43 yard gain. This reception set up a one yard touchdown plunge by Jawan Jamsion later in the drive.

The switch route is an old relic from the run and shoot, but it is still a very effective play in football today. Rutgers's offense may have been too conservative in this game, but when they opened things up on this play, it worked. The Knights earned their biggest gain of the day using this play, and it set up a touchdown. The play was executed perfectly by the players, with the line doing a great job picking up the blitz, Nova delivering a great throw, Harrison running the defense off, and Coleman hauling the pass in for a big gain. Hopefully we'll see this more going forward.