Love our Counter Trey and 'Rugby Scrum'

Love our use of the old Washington Redskins' Counter-Trey play and the variations on it that we use. It requires agile enough pulling linemen to work well, and our guys seem to fit the bill. We've executed this sort of play very well in the Herman era, and seem to consistently get a lot of yards off of it. Joe Gibbs said he borrowed the play from Nebraska. Also, SMU used to run this play real well in the height of their cheating days with Eric Dickerson and Craig James. [You young 'uns should know that before he became a rather-douchy announcer, Craig James was quite a good RB in the SMU backfield with Dickerson.]

Also, I really love our 'rugby scrum' that we so often use (impromptu) at the end of our plays, often to get an extra 5+ yards. Our linemen are hustling, not quitting, and getting downfield to push the pile forward once our ball carrier is wrapped up. This is a sign of dominance in the running game and serves to demoralize the opponent--in addition to moving the chains or crossing the goal line.

 

Counter trey is a favorite of mine and we used to run it with Ricky very effectively.
I've wanted to see it used again for awhile now.

I hope we have a WR/RB that can keep their feet the way LJH did so the "scrum" can still be useful.

 

While we have frequently benefited from it, "the scrum" has NO place in football, and lineman should not be allowed to push or pull their RB forward, Not sure when they changed that rule, but it is an abomination to the game, and should result in a five yard penalty for first offense, than 10-15 yards or subsequent offenses.

 

I've got to respectfully disagree with you on this one Sabre. If it's even against the rules any more, they haven't enforced it for years (sort of like non-blatant holding). It absolutely has a place in football and is a noticeable part of our power running attack. The Horns have made numerous first downs and a few touchdowns on this 'rugby scrum' this season, leading one to believe that our coaches must certainly encourage it. It's like an offenses version of gang-tackling. It's 'we're moving this ball forward and you can't stop us.'

I would expect we'll keep doing this 'rugby scrum' at the end of plays, and frequently, unless and until the refs start throwing flags (if it's even against the rules anymore).

 

It's no longer in the rules that the ball carrier cannot receive assistance moving the ball forward. I believe they took it out two or three years ago. It's legal for the ball carrier to get assistance while being tackled to move forward with the ball.

 

Rule was changed to allow pushing, but a penalty for pulling. Since I haven't seen the "pulling" called, I assume it is either legal or ignored. I do not like either rule change, but we are stuck with it until we get a few broken arms and/or legs, then it will get reviewed.

 

The counter-trey had been around long before Gibbs. To this day I've never seen it run better than the Denver Broncos with Otis Armstrong in the mid-70's. He could have an all-time great if not for injuries.

 

Thanks for the clarification on the rules. I can appreciate sophisticated modern offenses and the ways the game has evolved. Still, I really like this particular throw-back to the Cro-Magnon era of the game (the 'rugby scrum' at the end of plays). Our linemen and coaches seem to also really like it.

I can acknowledge it does have some issues: (i) the possibility of injuries can increase with (often) well over 1,000 lbs of men pushing forward, and (ii) the ball carrier is prone to getting the ball stripped in the 'scrum'.

 

I'll look up some old Broncos film, thanks for the info. It's such a great play if you have the agile pulling linemen to run it, and it seems like we were really executing well on some version(s) of this play last year. I mentioned the Redskins and Gibbs as that team really popularized it (to me anyway) with their Hogs and Riggins--wasn't aware of Denver's previous successful use of it. It was also a mainstay of SMU's offense in their cheating days.

Weakness: a very quick DT could blow it up with back-side/pulling-side penetration.

 

Didn't it come to be an infraction (at least pushing) following the uproar of the USC Reggie "Bush Push" getting him over the goalline versus ND?

Edit: as noted below Bush pushed Leinart.

 

SabreHorn will hate this, but...

“Legendary head coach Tom Osborne is credited for creating the counter trey and, while his best offenses at Nebraska were triple-option teams, his version of the counter trey did not feature any options. I imagine he is proud to see his brainchild being combined with option football in today's modern offenses.”

BTW, the rugby style scrum is (IMHO) contrary to the spirit of the game. While on balance we have benefited from the rule, I don’t like it and believe that it should be eliminated. If Reggie Bush doesn’t push Leinart across the goal line at ND in 2005 — and that should have been called, because it was not legal at the time — we probably wouldn’t have played USC on 1/4/06.

 

No, it was an infraction for decades before becoming legal just a few years ago. When it was made legal, however, it was with the stipulation you could push but not pull.

Of course, if you go back to the early twentieth century it was legal, but a runner could also get up and run after a tackle if he wasn't held down. Then there was the rule about touching the ground in the endzone with the ball to get 6 points.

 

Sorry, got my infraction and legal play mixed up. Right, was an infraction before tbe Bush Push, was legalized after that, in part because of reflection on it?

 

Oh well, throw that in with OA Phillips originating the numbers defense and Jerry Sandusky inventing the zone blitz, and you see that even a blind squirrel finds an acorn every now and then.

 

While I respect your viewpoint, I suppose we just have differing views of the spirit of the game. That's ok. Differing Longhorn fans will never see eye-to-eye on everything.

To be clear, I don't advocate some sort of reactionary rollback to pre-Teddy Roosevelt-era football--which basically resembled rugby and featured Ivy League kids literally getting killed on the field. I like our sophisticated offense with both a running game and a passing game embedded therein. I do, however, like our 'rugby scrum' at the end of plays when the runner is stopped but not down. We do this a lot, and are clearly using the new rule legalizing a 'push-type rugby scrum' to our advantage.

With all the 'high tech' offenses and crafty developments in the game, IMHO it's nice to have a few caveman-era challenges of brute force and team brawn still in the game like: (i) the goal line stand, and (ii) the rugby scrum at the end of some plays. As eager as our linemen are to do this (the game film indicates to me that they're very eager to 'scrum' at the end of the play--and our coaches egg them on from the sidelines), I've got to think our linemen and our coaches like it too. Also, with our improved recruiting and S&C program, we're now very well situated (compared to our opponents) for these sorts of brute-force events.

 

Flippant remark: Perhaps the rules guys at the NCAA threw the fans and proponents of rough hard-nosed football a bone by legalizing the push-style rugby scrum around the time they passed the targeting rule.

 

It used to be a flag for, what did they call it? Assisting the runner, or Pushing the runner? I like seeing the scrum with no laundry thrown by the refs.

 

If it's true that we will run the counter Trey that would be awesome. The Redskins (yeah I said it) use to kill my cowboys with it so I hated it, but I did admire the scheme. I would like us to use the scheme.

 

First time I remember running it was under Mackovic in the early 90's...

 

We ran some version(s) of the counter trey last year, where we pull two backside linemen, QB fake to the backside (or to a man in motion) and hand it to the RB 'counter' to the fake who follows the pulling linemen. Not precisely the textbook Redskins counter trey, but an adaptation of the counter trey concept for a one RB offense. Worked really well for us mostly.

Some guy "Coach McKie" in the video below diagrams 3 variations of the counter trey he runs from a spread offense.

Weakness of the play: a really quick backside DT could blow it up with backside penetration/catch the RB in the backfield.

 

I remember one game Mackovic's final year.
Counter trey with Ricky was getting 5 to 15 yards every time we ran it.
Second half the play disappeared and we lost the game.
First time I ever heard Ricky complain.
After the game he said the play was working so well he felt you should keep running it until they figured out how to stop it.
He couldn't understand why it completely disappeared the second half.
That was another nail in Mackovic's coffin.

 

ND game

 

I hate it when coaches do that. Mackovic should have run the play until they stopped it. And if ND brought up 8-9 in the box to stop it, then run a play action off of it or something.

Say what you want to about the doomed Mackovic regime, his annoying arrogance, and his utter lack of concern for defense, but his offensive lines were impressive blends of brawn and agility. They were strong, they could pull, and they were well-coached and skilled. We lost something up front with the musical chairs of Mack's OL coaches and lazy OL recruiting in Mack's later years. Good to see Hand has rapidly brought us back on the OL, and with even better things in store.

 

#RememberTheFive

Always remember!

 

Just a little something I noticed watching my recording of the Spring game. Whittington ran an effective counter trey at 8:00 in the third quarter. Angilau pulled with Cosmi and sealed the DE and Whittington followed the blockers well, read the opening created by Angilau, and burst forward for about 8-9 yards and a first down. Still looking good.

 

And another effective counter trey run by Whittington at 0:58 in the third quarter. Angilau again got the seal on his pull and Whittington bounced it outside with some very impressive acceleration for 10+ yards and a first down. You don't need a crystal ball to predict this will be an important part of our offense with Whitttington.

 

I too love this play and hope it's a play that we use often. It could make stars out of whit and Ingram. I think We have the linemen to make that play consistently effective.

 

Thought it was our 21-23 loss to Baylor.

It might actually lessen injuries if nobody gets tangled and has a limb bent awkwardly. Just a guess, but sort of like how in auto racing the worst crashes in terms of driver death or serious injury are rarely the ones that see a dozen cars all collected and tumbling together because that burns away the momentum pretty quickly. It's often the ones that don't look so bad but where just a couple of cars make a hard smash at just the wrong angle.