By Dustin Ragusa
Now, let's move on to Part 3 of the Missouri State offensive film review. If you missed the previous two posts, you can find them below:
In today's post, I'm going to take a look at the OSU passing attack from this past weekend. Quarterback Shane Illingworth got the start for the Cowboys in the absence of Spencer Sanders, going 22-of-40 (55% completion) for 315 yards with one touchdown and one interception. He started out looking really sharp, especially on the first drive, and he went into the locker room at halftime having completed 15-of-23 (65% completion) passes for 205 yards and 1 TD. However, in the final two quarters, he lacked consistent accuracy, made some questionable reads and was just a little slow overall in processing what the defense was giving him. Overall, I think it was a pretty average performance from the young Illingworth, but I think he handled himself well and made some nice plays on the day.
Below, I'll take a look at some key things that stood out to me in the passing attack against the Bears.
First Drive
He may have been average on the day, but Illingworth was nearly perfect on the first drive of the game. The MSU defense was sitting back in zone coverage and only bringing four pass rushers for the majority of the first half, and OSU offensive coordinator Kasey Dunn took advantage of it on this first series. Illingworth was 5-of-6 for 69 yards and a touchdown and looked extremely confident on nearly every play of this drive.
After throwing an incompletion on the first play of the game, Illingworth hits wide receiver Tay Martin on a deep out route for 18-yard gain. The Cowboys are in a 10-personnel look, with two receivers split to each side. Right when Illingworth takes the snap, he sees the MSU defensive back's hips turn, and he knows Martin will be open on his sideline-breaking route. The release may have been a little late, but Martin has created so much separation he still had time to make a move and gain a few yards after the catch.
On the next play, Illingworth connects with Brennan Presley for another first down. Here you see pre-snap that the Bear defensive back is playing about 7 yards off the line of scrimmage, giving Presley plenty of room to run a quick hitch route. MSU drops back into what looks like a Cover 3, and Illingworth makes the throw.
Illingworth then goes back to Martin for 16 yard pickup on his next throw. This one was impressive stuff from the young QB. He goes through his progressions, surveying the entire field, and then fires a pass to Martin. Really nice protection here from the offensive line as well, though it was only a four-man rush, it’s still impressive to protect the QB for this length of time.
After a couple of running plays, the Cowboys go back to the air, and Martin hauls down another grab, this time for 19 yards. I’ll break this play down further in the “Go-To Concepts” section below.
Finally, after a 1-yard scramble from Illingworth, the drive is capped off by this beautiful fade pass to Martin for six.
Credit to pretty much everyone involved on this drive. Illingworth looked poised and in control of the offense, the offensive line protected well (though there wasn't a lot of pressure), the wide receivers made some nice plays and Dunn seemed to know exactly what Missouri State was trying to do on defense.
The Newcomers
Freshmen receivers Bryson Green and Jaden Bray, along with redshirt freshman Rashod Owens all saw some action against MSU and performed well. Green was part of the starting receiving corps, and Bray and Owens got into the action in the second quarter. All three guys looked really comfortable on the field for the Pokes, and I definitely think we see more of not only Green, but Bray and Owens, as well. Below is their stat breakdown from Saturday's outing:
- Green: 8 targets / 3 receptions / 41 yards
- Bray: 3 targets / 2 receptions / 52 yards
- Owens: 1 target / 1 catch / 28 yards
Green showed he can run a variety of routes against MSU, and looked really smooth at all times.
Bray showed off his contested catch ability on plays like the one below. Illingworth seemed pretty confident if he threw it up to Bray, the young wideout would come down with it.
Owens only had the one grab but he showed off some nice speed after the catch.
Focusing on these young guys, I don't want to take anything away from Martin and Presley, as they both had great performances. However, seeing these three come on the field and perform with little to no prior college football experience has me really excited for the future at the wide receiver position.
Go-To Concepts
A lot of the what we saw against the Bears was quick read, zone beaters, or exploiting matchups on the outside and looking for something downfield. However, there were two route concepts I liked which Dunn went to several times on Saturday. The first one we touched on a little bit above in the "First Drive" section.
The Cowboys ran this high, low "Smash" concept out of Trips multiple times against the MSU defense.
"The smash concept consists of two routes, run on the same side of the field, that seeks to stress zone coverage with paired high-low routes. The high route is often a corner route that gets the receiver 12-15 yards downfield. Meanwhile, the low route is usually a quick hitch or curl, settling into an unoccupied zone. The goal of the smash concept is to force a coverage decision by the cornerback or flat defender: converge on the short route, or maintain depth on the high option, conceding the underneath route." [ITP]
As you can see in the clip above, Martin is running the corner about 15 yards down the field, while Braydon Johnson runs the low route.
Here we see it again later in the game out of the same formation.
And, here’s one last example on the Martin touchdown that was overturned.
With how early and often Dunn dialed up this concept, you can tell this was probably something he saw on film preparing to face Missouri State.
The second concept I wanted to take a look at is another one the Pokes were running out of a Trips look. It starts with outside to inside motion from Johnson, and then the two inside receivers switch release off the snap. All three WRs are running vertical routes downfield, and one of them crosses in front of MSU's safety to add an additional layer of confusion for the defense. I really like this play and I don't think I've seen it before from the Dunn-led Cowboy offense. Illingworth misses Johnson here for a TD, but still finds Presley for a nice gain.
Here we see the same play again on the other side of the field.
Conclusion
Overall, Dunn kept things pretty simple in the passing game. He saw what we wanted to do leading up to this one on film and tried to execute that against the MSU defense. I'm okay with keeping things vanilla in this one, but once Sanders returns I would like to see more from the passing attack.
I've hit on QB play already a few times, but I think the big things for Illingworth to continue to work on are the way he reads the field both pre and post snap and his overall accuracy. There were multiple times when he had a pre-snap look he could've exploited, but stuck with the original call. Although, I don't think this blame can be placed completely on him without knowing what all Dunn is allowing him to do from a read perspective.
The offensive line pass protected well, but this could be a little misleading as MSU didn't bring much pressure at all in the first half, and didn't really get that much more aggressive in the second. It's a great sign to see the line perform well in the aspect of the game though, and I hope they can continue improving moving forward.