Trickeration: The Art of Deceiving a Defense. When And How To Use Trick Plays.

It was January 1, 2007 and the Boise State Broncos were reeling. Oklahoma’s 25 unanswered points gave the Sooners a 35-28 lead. The Broncos found themselves at 4th-and-18. Their season would end in 18 seconds. That’s when head coach Chris Petersen and OC Bryan Harsin reached into their gadget bag.
Broncos QB Jared Zabransky hit Drisan James for 15 yards, shy of the first down. But as five defenders bore down on James, he lateraled to Jerard Rabb, catching Oklahoma flat-footed. Rabb ran 35 yards for a touchdown. Boise State’s “Hook-and-Lateral,” sent the game into overtime (See Diagram 1).

Oklahoma scored on its first OT possession, a 25-yard run by Adrian Peterson. The Broncos got the ball, but their drive stalled. It was 4th-and-2 on the Sooners’ 5. Zabransky went in motion to his left. Backup receiver Vinny Perretta took the snap. Perretta rolled right and tucked the ball as if he was running for the end zone. Then he pulled up and passed to tight end Derek Schouman for six points.
It was time for a final dice roll. Zabransky looked to his three receivers lined up on the right. He strongly sold the pass. Running back Ian Johnson appeared to be nonchalantly standing around. Then Johnson trotted past Zabransky and grabbed the ball. Schouman and Ryan Clady provided superb run blocking, and Johnson headed left into the end zone, uncontested. A perfect Statue of Liberty play (See Diagram 2). Three plays, 14 points, and Boise State ended their season with a 13-0 record.

What the Broncos pulled off was anything but lucky.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Harsin said the Broncos practice their trick plays weekly – with specific opponents in mind. Boise State’s trick-play game-planing factors in clock management, field position, down and distance, and the hash marks. All this preparation is with a specific purpose: “In a game, you feel like you want to be safe, but for us, (trick) plays are conventional,” Harsin told the Post. “An inside-zone play, a statue play – they’re just regular plays to (us).”
Should every team have their own arsenal of trick plays? When is the best time to use them? How can they best be defended?
Hal Mumme believes a team’s gadget repertoire should be inspired by its regular playbook. Mumme’s reputation as an offensive innovator began when he was a high school coach in Texas. After stints at Iowa Wesleyan, Valdosta State, Kentucky (where the ‘Air Raid Offense’ got its name), Southeastern Louisiana, and New Mexico State, Mumme is now the head coach at McMurry University (TX) where his teams are still renowned for their fearsome passing game. “You gotta have a plan to attack people,” said Mumme. “You do the same things the same way three-to-four games in a row, and then you change things up when it’s a game you must win. You take what they know about you from the last 3-4 games and then tweak your offense to counterpunch.”
Bob Stitt built his reputation coaching at Doane College, Austin College (TX) and Harvard before becoming head coach at Colorado School of Mines. Stitt likes to build tricks using variations of his offense’s favorite plays. “There’s two times you should use (tricks),” Stitt said. “I think you should use them earlier rather than later in the game. Or maybe after a turnover to get a big play. When we get a fumble or an interception, I like to go for a big play right after that.”
Stitt is not a big fan of delayed gratification. “Too many people wait until later in the game,” he said. “I think there are times that are better than others to call a gadget play. I like to script them early in the game. The defense is usually fired up and little more aggressive than later in the game. I also like to call a gadget once we have crossed the 50-yard line. A successful gadget play will more than likely result in a touchdown with this field position. If the play backfires and doesn’t work, resulting in a possible turnover, you really haven’t put the defense in a bad situation as far as field position goes.”
Why should you you use trick plays early? “If you’re behind, gadgets don’t really work,” Stitt said. “When you’re behind, the defense doesn’t have to take chances. Zone defenses aren’t going to bite on things, they’re going to make you earn it. You need to call them when the defense absolutely isn’t going to expect something. It might be fourth-and-an-inch, and we might call a gadget because teams won’t expect it. I’m a little crazy, and that’s kind of our style of doing things. You just never know what we’re going to do. People don’t know that with us. We might throw deep.”
Mumme feels it’s best to keep certain players out of the loop when a gadget is about to be run. “The best trick plays are ones where the whole offense doesn’t know what’s coming,” Mumme said. “If the O-line thinks you’re running a stretch play to the right, and you’re really running a reverse to your wide receiver running to the left, rather than teach the whole offense that it’s a reverse, you’re better off letting your O-line think it’s a stretch. That way you’re not giving the reverse away to the safety. Brett Favre’s been doing it in the NFL for years. He throws a quick slant even though a run is called. It is just between him and the wide receiver. It’s hard for the defense to recognize it because everyone on the O-line is blocking their ass off on the run.”
One of Stitt’s favorite gadget plays involves the tunnel screen. “We run a lot of tunnel screens – so we run a reverse off of it called the ‘Tunnel Flip,’ said Stitt. “We throw the screen to the single receiver (X) in a 3-by-1 formation. The running back that is offset weak in the backfield is used to blocking the most dangerous defender to the screen side. On the tunnel screen, the RB will cross the line of scrimmage and pick off the defender. On the flip, the ball is delivered quicker to X to show the tunnel screen to the defense and X pitches the ball to the running back. Our tunnel screen is designed to be run inside the tackle box like a middle screen. Aggressive defenses will pursue to the tackle box as soon as they identify that we are running the tunnel screen and that makes the ‘Tunnel Flip’ a great complement to our tunnel screen.” (See Diagram 3).

Stitt uses a variation of the bubble screen to complement his running game. “When we throw the bubble screen, our coaches in the press box are watching how aggressive the defense is in defending the bubble,” said Stitt. “If they are aggressively covering down with both defenders to stop the bubble, then we will call a play action pass where we full-arm fake the bubble and throw deep to the outside receiver that is used as a blocker on a bubble screen.” (See Diagram 4)

Another wrinkle Stitt likes to run is from the shotgun set. “We’ll offset a running back, and simulate a zone read run play,” Stitt said. “The quarterback will bootleg and throw back to the running back. We’ll use that in plus 10 or goal line situations when we expect to see man coverage. As soon as the defense sees the bootleg, they will tend to forget about the running back.” (See Diagram 5)

Mumme also identifies two other plays he thinks are super tricks. “The shuttle pass that June Jones runs at SMU is a great trick play,” said Mumme. “It’s been done so much that it’s become kind of old hat, but when we study it on film, it’s one of the more incredible things that people do. The other one along the same line is run at Texas Tech. It’s a running back screen that the coaches devised to look exactly like one of their best pass plays. They got some incredible mileage out of that play. What the coaches did was change what the WRs did on the shallow play. They had one of the guys come underneath and block one of the defenders out of the play. And then they created a screen off that. We call it ‘shallows’ and will call it 6-to-12 times a game. You run that play, run that play, run that play, and then throw the ball to your best RB. Tech got incredible mileage out of that play.”
One thing coaches looking to add more trickery to their game plans must remember: tricks are not for the faint-hearted, and they’re not something you should pin your hopes on. Texas Head Coach Mack Brown wants to add more tricks, but he isn’t rewriting his playbook. “Now don’t get me wrong,” said Brown. “I’m not suggesting we replace our base offense with trick plays. I’d like to be able to look at using two or three a game. I want to have more fun in our offense and I think the players and fans really enjoy seeing trick plays.”