Film Study: Unleashing Emmanuel Ogbah

What Baylor Was Doing

Baylor is in a spread formation with three WR’s (two to the left), a RB to the right of Stidham and a TE lined up a couple yards in front of the RB. The linemen are in their pass block stances.

Although I’m not sure, I believe that Baylor was facing a long conversion on this play. The Bears were looking to pick up the first down through the air. The RB and the TE are in to pass block and give Stidham time to make a play.

The two outside WRs do an 8-yard curl route and the inside WR on the left side runs a post route.

What OSU Was Doing

The Pokes are in the base 4-3 alignment. The linebackers are shifted more toward the two-WR side.

Both CBs are showing man coverage on their receivers. However, the CB one the right side of the screen is playing off about six yards whereas the CB on the left side is about two yards off.

The safeties are in a Cover 2. I’m sure most of the readers are familiar with a Cover 2, but just as a refresher, it’s when the two safeties cover the deep halves of the field in an attempt to not let any receivers get behind them. So if any receiver gets to that level, as the inside WR on this play did, it becomes the job of the safeties to pick him up.

Why This Worked For OSU

The defensive backs and linebackers did a great job at their coverage assignments here. Stidham was unable to find an open WR and held on to the ball longer than he would have liked.

Once the ball is snapped, Ogbah and Jordan Brailford rush straight up the field. Instead of rushing directly at Stidham and giving him the opportunity to elude the pass rush and scramble outside, the DEs take a different angle that not only keeps Stidham in the pocket longer, it stretches out the blocking from the offensive line.

Ogbah uses speed and good technique to fight through the block while keeping outside leverage just in case Stidham scrambles.

As he closes in Ogbah, sees the QB holding the ball in a vulnerable spot and decides to extend his arm to knock it away. Seeing that he knocked the ball loose, Ogbah is able to knock over the QB and recover it.

“I was disappointed in how we were playing. I was mad and trying to stay focused on what we had to do,” said Ogbah. “I was trying to do the best I can to help my team out. I felt like we had a lot of errors that we were making and we still have to fix.”