Anatomy Of A Play | Trevor Knight's 31-Yard Touchdown Run

Remember what the motion man did for Samaje Perine last week? Saturday it did the same thing for Trevor Knight as the Oklahoma quarterback ran 31 yards, untouched, into the end zone. Let's take a quick look at the play and then discuss what we're seeing.

At the snap Martin is racing top side with Ross. He's actually going to switch coverage with safety Demarco Nelson. Martin will pick up Sterling Shepard in the slot and Nelson will take Alex Ross in the flat. At the bottom of the screen safety Michael Mudoh is into his back pedal at the snap. This doesn't make sense because he isn't on man coverage. Instead he's the "over the top" cover guy on the deep route but with the middle of the field wide open he is supposed to read and then react. By that, I mean he's supposed to examine the play and then either back pedal or crash in on run support. He's expecting pass all the way here and the result will be a massive lane for Trevor Knight to run through on the draw.

The yellow lines mark the lane for Knight to run through. He literally has clear sailing. The only guy with a shot at blowing this up is linebacker Donnell Hawkins (at the bottom of the screen) but he gets sealed off by Ripkowski just long enough for Knight to get past. Also notice that Adam Shead is not engaged with anyone but is still behind the line of scrimmage. He'll eventually move down the field with Knight as a lead blocker but the fact that he's still there shows that this is a run/pass option. With that ginormous lane to his left running the ball is a no-brainer.

Here's the result. Rip has the seal block, preventing Hawkins from getting to the ball. Knight is on the move and Shead is ahead of him as a lead blocker. Linebacker Trent Martin is still engaged with Shepard at the top of the field (his back is to the ball) which leaves the middle wide open all the way to the safeties.

This is all on Knight as he does a Houdini act. Out in front of his blockers now, there are four different Tulsa defenders that have a shot at Trevor Knight. When you hear people say that you can't coach instincts this is what they're talking about. Knight is once again able to find a lane and then outruns the Tulsa secondary to the end zone.

There were a ton of working components involved in this score but the key factor was Trevor Knight. He made the right read of the run/pass option, and he found himself a running lane not once but twice on his way to pay dirt.