Kansas State’s offense learned valuable lessons after surrendering rare safety to TCU
Any offensive play that results in a safety is going to be met with an abundance of criticism.
That is one of the unwritten rules of football.
Kansas State was on the wrong end of one those plays during a 31-12 victory over TCU last Saturday when running back Deuce Vaughn was tackled for lost yardage at the end of a busted play in his own end zone. The Wildcats are still shaking their heads about it a week later.
“When you have your backs against the wall like that you have got to get the ball our of the end zone,” Vaughn said. “We have to do little things better and cut it and knife it and just get the ball out of the end zone. We weren’t able to do that ... It’s hard because you’re right there and they have got everybody up. But you still have to get the ball out of the end zone.”
What went wrong?
Many were quick to blame offensive coordinator Courtney Messingham for calling a slow-developing play out of a shotgun formation from inside the 1-yard line that gave TCU defenders an opportunity to blow up the run and put two points on the scoreboard immediately after K-State’s defense stood tall with a goal-line stand.
In hindsight, perhaps a quarterback sneak designed to move the ball a yard or two would have worked better. Or maybe a handoff to Vaughn out of an I-formation with a fullback blocking in front of him would have resulted in positive yards. What about a slant pass to Malik Knowles?
Messingham likely lost some sleep over that play. Then again, he may have felt some relief after watching it on replay, because it’s clear the play was set up for success with better execution.
Vaughn successfully ran 42 yards for a touchdown out of the same formation on an earlier drive against an aggressive defense on fourth-and-one. Vaughn also scored on a similar play at the goal line later in the game.
The difference? K-State won at the line of scrimmage on those other plays. Vaughn had a hole the size of a parking spot to sprint trough on his long touchdown run. Later, K-State’s offensive line gave him ample room to dive into the end zone with an impromptu leap.
But when the Wildcats tried to run out of their end zone, they lost the battle up front ... big time.
“As an offensive line,” K-State left guard Josh Rivas said, “we took that one hard.”
It’s clear Vaughn was supposed to take a handoff and burst left around a mob of linemen on a stretch-run play designed for him to beat defenders to the edge. Instead, so many defenders were in the backfield that he had no choice but to run straight ahead, where TCU linebacker Dee Winters was charging ahead to make a tackle.
The Horned Frogs successfully beat K-State’s interior linemen as the ball was snapped, which cut off any path to the left where perimeter blocks were set up to spring Vaughn for a chunk gain. That also gave TCU a perfect tackling lane up the middle. The play wasn’t supposed designed to go to the right, so there was no escape in that direction, either.
“We probably didn’t identify the blocks as well as we would have liked to,” K-State coach Chris Klieman said. “Maybe you throw the ball (instead), I don’t know. We just have to be able to punch it out of there and we weren’t able to do that. Part of that is just the execution wasn’t as good as it needed to be.”
Chalk it up as a learning experience for the Wildcats.
They didn’t disappoint the next time they found themselves in a short-yardage situation and called a similar play.
“We let the linebacker through, and that was the offensive line’s responsibility,” Rivas said. “But I felt that made everybody buckle down and get movement and start coming off the ball more physical. That’s what we have to do the next time we are backed up that far.”
This story was originally published November 4, 2021 at 10:46 AM with the headline "Kansas State’s offense learned valuable lessons after surrendering rare safety to TCU."