The beauty of the play action pass

Wed. November 16, 2011 at 12:06 a.m. | By Mike Duprez

One of the many enjoyable aspects about the game of football is watching the chess match between coaches, watching how their decisions lead to success, watching them make adjustments.
When an opposing coach looks across the field and sees Thomasville’s Allen Brown and Dickie Cline, that has to be cause for concern. That coach is looking at a pair of living legends, with close to 600 career wins between them. Nobody is going to outcoach them. They, however, have outcoached their share of good coaches. That was never more apparent than Friday night at Cushwa Stadium.
Thomasville’s offense revolves around the superb Shaquan Johnson, who might as well wear a cape and be called Superman for all that he has done, with nearly 3,000 yards rushing and 39 total touchdowns. A humble player, Johnson always sings the praises of his fullback. That would be Ryan Broadie. And his offensive linemen. They would be Tequan Williams, Jordan Hagens, Frank Ingram, Lawrence Phillips and Eddie Welbourn. You don’t hear their names very often but they make it happen.
Those are the physical elements. They execute.
It all starts with Cline’s game plan. What that means is Thomasville will run the football. And run. And run. That is Cline’s preference and that dovetails nicely with Brown’s offensive philosophy. It’s a great partnership. Brown handles the defense and Cline the offense. It’s smashmouth football, kind of a throwback.This isn’t the Air Benjie spread offense when Benjie Brown (Allen’s son) was the head coach. Quarterbacks like Bryan Shore, Brent LeMay, Cory Tobin and E.J. Abrams-Ward flourished in it.
Now it’s 2011 and sophomore quarterback Shakeem Peterson turns around and hands the ball to Johnson on nearly every play. The other teams know this and they still haven’t stopped the Thomasville offense.
Cline acknowledges he likes to run the football but you have to listen to everything he says. The coach who won a bunch of games at North Davidson, Ragsdale and Ledford has said numerous times, “We’re a play action team.”
And that’s the key.
The play action pass is a thing of beauty. It helps keep defenses honest. If executed properly, it makes defenses pay dearly if they try to crowd the box and stuff the running game.
There weren’t really any secrets hidden on the Thomasville side. Wilkes Central free safety Dustin Triplett likes to charge in and play the run. Indeed, he recovered a Johnson fumble inside the Wilkes Central 10 in the first quarter.
But as it turned out, Cline was laying a trap in the midst of all those running plays. Cline said Triplett was a great player but he hoped to be able to take advantage of the Wilkes Central star’s overaggresiveness.
Wilkes Central coach Jeremy Funderburk is no slouch. He watched game film. He knew Thomasville could throw the play action pass. But he didn’t know when and that gave Cline the initiative even though the Eagles led 3-0 at halftime.
Time after time, Peterson handed off to Johnson — 41 times to be exact. So on the first play of the second half, Peterson turned as if to hand the ball to Johnson. The Wilkes Central defense had to make a split-second decision. They bit. Triplett charged forward. But Johnson came through the line withour the ball. Uh-oh. That left speedy Quindale Williams going down the left sideline with single coverage. Peterson, a cool customer for a sophomore, hit Williams in stride. Touchdown. Game changer. More genius from Cline.
Salisbury coach Joe Pinyan has surely seen that play on film. He also remembers Peterson and Johnson hooking up on a game-winning 80-yard touchdown pass in the teams’ regular season showdown.
Now it’s Pinyan’s turn to match wits with Brown and Cline, to guess when the play action pass will be unleashed. Should be a good one.

Mike Duprez can be reached at 249-3981, ext. 218 or mike.duprez@the-dispatch.com.