Down 24-7 against Ohio State, with just over a minute remaining in the first quarter, Cal momentarily found itself back in the game after a 42-yard touchdown pass from Jared Goff to Chris Harper. Here is how it all transpired:
The Bears come out in the shotgun, with Brendan Bigelow lined up to the left of Goff and four wide receivers — two line up on the left and two on the right. Harper is positioned on the right side of the line of scrimmage.
Goff takes the snap and immediately looks and steps toward receiver Bryce Treggs on the left side of the field. The onset of the play immediately smells like a quick pass to Treggs, and the Buckeyes are clearly fooled by the misdirection, centering their attention on Treggs.
Suddenly, Goff plants his foot, spins around to the right and fires a pass to Harper, who is waiting a yard behind the line of scrimmage on the right side of the field for a screen pass.
As Goff begins to turn his body from left to right, Cal’s offensive line — with the exception of left-tackle Freddie Tagaloa — starts running to the right side of the field to set up blocks for Harper.
When Harper catches the pass, he has the four offensive linemen in front of him and a wide receiver blocking only three Buckeye defenders. His blockers do their job and create a Grand Canyon-sized hole.
Around the Ohio State 30-yard line, Harper has a decision to make. He has a blocker two yards ahead of him, an Ohio State defensive back about 10 yards upfield and two defenders on his heels. If Harper waits for his blocker to take the defensive back upfield out of the equation with a block, he’ll have a clear path to the end zone but risks a tackler reaching him from behind. On the other hand, if Harper races ahead of his blocker and leaves the Ohio State defenders behind him in his dust, it would leave the defensive back ahead of him unblocked.
Harper opts for the latter option, putting him in a race for the end zone with the one remaining Buckeye.
The defensive back clearly has the angle on Harper, but Harper weaves back and forth, causing the DB to retreat. Harper successfully avoids initiating any contact with the defender until he hits the five-yard line. From here, Harper uses his strength and momentum carrying himself forward to drive toward the pylon.
Harper wisely sticks the ball out, and — as he is falling out of bounds at the half-yard line — the ball strikes the pylon just moments before he is ruled out of bounds, securing the touchdown for Cal.
This play worked primarily because Ohio State knew going into the game that Goff often targets Treggs on short routes. Treggs’ ability to rack up the YAC forced Ohio State to focus on him, which allowed Harper to remain inconspicuous until Goff redirected the play to his left.
While the offensive line has faced its fair share of criticism, it deserves credit for this particular play. Offensive line coach Zach Yenser said before the season that his unit would be the best-conditioned line in the conference. It certainly appeared to be one of the quickest and most athletic on the touchdown.
The four offensive linemen that helped spring Harper free traversed a decent amount of yardage in the time it took for Goff to turn his body around and Harper to receive the pass. If the offensive line hadn’t got out in front of Harper in time, what ended up being a great play design by Dykes and his offensive staff would’ve been marked down as a negative play.
Sean Wagner-McGough covers football. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @seanjwagner.