Drawing Up Trick Play(s)?

That's the problem with trick plays. I personally love a well thought out and executed trick play, but if it's sniffed out the coach takes all kinds of crap from people that would have been all over his nuts if it had worked.

I know, RR situation is different than most rabble rabble hot seat rabble whatever, but generally speaking coaches should not be calling plays based on what the fans reaction to them will be.  If a coach calls a trick play, it is because he thinks it will give his team the best chance to win, and because at that point in time he feels the risk is justified.  Whether or not we think he is an idiot for genius for doing it should be irrelevant.

That's my favorite Lloyd Carr game. Not coincidentally it's the most un-Lloyd Carr game he ever called.

But even in that game, he didn't go crazy with a bunch of gadget plays.  It's like he looked at all that NFL talent and said hmm, maybe we can win by throwing the ball from the start of the game, and not when we get down 10-17 points in the second half. 

Well you see here, Brett throws the ball and then BOOM! touchdown.

Sorry if that is a bad Madden impersonation, I'm not Frank Caliendo. 

I think they did one in the movie "The Waterboy" where all the D linemen lined up outside of one of the tackles and had a massive rush from one side at the QB.

There's this little trick I've seen other teams doing lately. It's called "tackle-ing" or something of that nature. Apparently it's pretty effective at keeping opposing players from reaching the endzone. We should give this a try before the word gets out.

First it's a reverse, to take advantage of teams over pursuing on the zone hand off.

Next, it's a double reverse.  See, I put in the pulling guard as if to say, "Hey this is a key that we are running this way" so they thought "that's odd, oh, now I see, it's because it's a reverse."  Over pursue back the other way for the reverse, then suddenly "OH NO!  DOUBLE REVERSE!"  Pulling guard in perfect position to make blocks, as are the original zone read blocks.

But wait, so now they are pursuing back and the safeties are flying hard to the line of scrimmage in a panic, so then what?  QB Throw Back!  The original O-line that was blocking like a zone block release off the block and head out to the flat, where the initial reverse wide receiver is prepared to block down field already.  The slot has taken the free safety and corner to the far side of the field.  Now, if the double reverse receiver throws it back across the field, Denard has three blockers leading the way to the endzone on the "Double Reverse QB Throw Back!  I prefer running it in my own endzone to maximize the big play effect.  

I still think this might work better if the slot runs a fake post back to the corner and the RB then runs a wheel route after the initial reverse hand off and the QB after the QB throw back throws it to the RB on the wheel route, but I guess that's just a pipe dream... for now.

Up next, the trans-transcontinental!

must not have been available. linebacker must've been staying on his assignment instead of biting on the run fake.

My friends and I call that the "self-play action".  That play seriously works everytime.  And usually the WR is absolutely wide open.

We ran it once early on against MSU, for about a 15-yard gain.  An ankle tackle by an MSU DB saved a TD. 

I'm not a huge fan of trick plays, either.

However, in the first-hand experience I have of being involved with trick plays (playing and coaching), the practice time needed for their sufficient execution isn't really that outsized.  From what I've found, all the players are so excited about running something different that they catch on to WHO they should block and WHAT they should do pretty quickly.

Now, we might run an I-formation iso play 5 times each practice and then run it 12 times a game...and we might go over the trick play 2 times in a practice and use it only once the entire season.  That may seem like a waste of time, but if it works in a game and gives you the points/momentum you need to win even one game, then I'd say it's worth it.