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How South Carolina knocked off Georgia, kept its playoff hopes alive
In my preview for No. 6 Georgia at No. 24 South Carolina, I said that South Carolina would likely send receivers deep to test Georgia’s secondary — which showed vulnerability in the Bulldogs' opener against Clemson.
That’s exactly what happened in South Carolina’s 38-35 win, despite a game in which both teams had standout performances from running backs.
On a day the Gamecocks had their heads on the chopping block — needing a win to stay in contention for a College Football Playoff birth — they went fishing on offense, and the Dawgs took the bait.
One of the most basic methods an offense can use to attack a defense in zone coverage in the passing game is with “high/low” concepts.
The philosophy is simple: Send decoy receivers on short routes as bait with a receiver running a deeper route behind them and hope the defenders take the bait — leaving the deeper route open.
That’s exactly what South Carolina did repeatedly against Georgia’s secondary. South Carolina connected on three deep “dig” routes over the middle of the field on the first drive alone, and then on several damaging, long, first-down conversions throughout the rest of the game as UGA defenders “jumped” the shorter routes.
Defensive backs and linebackers in zone coverage are always taught to play pass patterns and concepts “deep-to-short.” Coaches tell players to give the offense the shorter route — let them have that completion — and then rally up to make a tackle. It’s better than the alternative, which allows the offense to connect on a strike for an explosive play deeper down the field.
Here are just two of the many examples of high/low concepts that South Carolina executed with perfection against Georgia on Saturday night. The Dawgs were caught taking the bait and got hit for explosive pass plays on each one.
Pin route
UGA is in cover 2 on this play. In this coverage there are five underneath zone defenders with two safeties deep. Each of the safeties is responsible for a deep half of the field. The five underneath players are taught to play “deep-to-short,” especially on plays like this when the offense was facing a second-and-20 situation.
As you can see in the photo, the pin-route concept attacks the center of the field. The slot receiver and the running back set up short, while the No. 1 receiver wide to the bottom of the shot runs a deep “dig” route behind them toward the middle of the field.
Again, the five underneath defenders should play deep to short, but look at this photo:
You can see in this shot that two of the defenders are taking the bait — jumping the shorter routes — as the quarterback throws the ball.
Now, this is the result:
The two defenders who took the bait created a huge void in the deep middle of the field when they jumped the shorter routes.
This play should have resulted in a 5-6 yard gain, but instead it went for an explosive pass play for about 20 yards.
China-7
While the pin route attacks the middle of the field, the China-7 concept uses the same philosophy but allows the offense to attack the boundary.
Take a look at this photo:
Here, you can see that UGA was once again in cover 2 — five underneath zone defenders and two deep.
South Carolina set up a high/low concept on the boundary with the China-7 route (slot receiver, second from top).
The cornerback at the top of the screen was the defender who took the bait on this play. Instead of playing his zone responsibility deep-to-short, he jumped the short route as the quarterback threw the ball — even though the receiver running the short route had fallen down.
Once that happened, South Carolina quarterback Dylan Thompson just needed to deliver an accurate throw to an open receiver for a big gain.
Mental errors by defenders in UGA’s basic zone coverages resulted in explosive plays in the passing game for South Carolina time and time again.
The Gamecocks’ offensive game plan was to put bait in front of the Dawgs’ defenders while sneaking a big-play strike behind them.
Their plan worked, resulting in too many situations like the ones above.
Because of this, Georgia wasted a 131-yard night from Todd Gurley and sacrificed its leadership position in the SEC East and race for the College Football Playoff.
As for South Carolina? Steve Spurrier’s team is alive and kicking again in the SEC and can finally leave its demoralizing Week 1 loss to Texas A&M behind.
Coy Wire played college football at Stanford before a nine-year NFL career in Buffalo and Atlanta. He's currently a college football analyst for FOX Sports 1 and writes for FOXsports.com. Follow him on Twitter @CoyWire.
