I've been wanting to do something like this for awhile, but I'm not sure if everyone will enjoy it as much as I will. So if you'd do me the favor and give me your feedback in the comments I'd greatly appreciate it. If you like it and have some suggestions for other players and/or plays you'd like to see given the same kind of breakdown, I'd definitely welcome that as well.
Obviously the star of the game offensively was Dominique Whaley, so I thought it only made sense to start there. What I'm planning on doing is to take a couple of his more impressive runs and try and give a frame-by-frame breakdown to try and point out why he might have been so successful. So if you all like this, hopefully this would be the first in a series of posts. First up, the run that lead to his first touchdown of the evening.
Here is the formation just before the snap. Two wide, a heavy set to the right with James Hanna in at TE, Trey Millard lined up as a TE/H-back, and Whaley in a single back set.
At the snap, the line crashes down to the right as Millard starts to come back across the play. Donald Stephenson intially picks up the TU right DE and Stephen Good the DT directly across from him.
Here you can see Stephenson has released his block and moved to the second level. Ben Habern and Tyler Evans both do the same. Millard has come across the play to pick up the DE Stephenson left. Good appears to get pushed off his block by his man, but Whaley is about to overcome that possible error.
Here you can get a better view of what I'm talking about as you can see Good, really blocking no one in the middle of the picture, his man now behind him thinking he's about to blow the play up for a loss or no gain. Oh, and check out Landry selling that bootleg. Way to go Landry!
So Whaley, seeing this, plants his right foot in the ground and gets the defender off balance and over extending. He lowers his shoulder ever so slightly and the defender is grabbing at air as he slips right by the virtually unblocked man. As much as I think the o-line contributed to his success, this run was all Whaley.
More evidence to that fact here as you can see another Tulsa defender coming off a block to meet Whaley a couple yards past the line of scrimmage. So within the last two frames, Whaley beats two basically unblocked defenders and takes this from a no gain/potential loss, to a two or three yard gain, to a 13-yard gain.
That flailing leg you see to the right of good is the defender who Whaley just ran right through. After avoiding the second tackle, he's met by #55 at the eight yard line. As you can see, #55 is soon to be joined by a couple teammates who get a free piggy back ride for the next five yards.
Wheeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!! Appreciate that this is three guys, soon to be four, that have him at the five. He carries them for another three yards.
This is where my whole Chris Brown comparison starts to take shape. He displayed incredible balance all night and this was just the first example. With a pile of Tulsa defenders on his back, he manages to fall forward for another two yards.
They would reward him for this run getting them down to the two yard line, by letting him punch it in for the first of his four touchdowns. The video shows just how good he was on this run, having to elude to virtually unblocked defenders with both subtle moves and brute strength. The more you watch this kid, the more you come to appreciate the talent he displayed in this game.