Defensive Touchdown Review: Wolfpack Bite on Play-action Leads to Touchdown

If there's one game the NC State defense wouldn't want to turn back on from last season, it's certainly the Clemson game. The Tigers had 45 points by halftime, and for the ACC opener last season, the Wolfpack couldn't have gone worse.

Time to relieve some old nightmares, as the next touchdown in the "Defensive Touchdown Review" series will be from that dreaded game. The second touchdown from Clemson was a 31-yard touchdown pass from Cade Klubnik to Antonio Williams, so how did it happen?

Second Touchdown

Cleson is in a 3x1 look with the tight end in-line as the single receiver towards the short side of the field. The strong side of the formation for Clemson is a trips set of wide receivers, and the running back is lined up towards that strong side.

NC State is showing single-high coverage here, with each Clemson receiver having Wolfpack defenders lined up over them, signaling to Klubnik that the Wolfpack is showing a man-coverage look pre-snap. Most likely some variation of cover one.

As the ball gets snapped, Klubnik fakes a handoff, and his eyes go towards his outside receiver on the strong side of the formation. He notices the corner is backpedalling and getting some depth, meaning it's a zone coverage. The Wolfpack falls into a cover three, meaning three deep zone defenders, and the rest have underneath responsibilities.

Nothing on the left side of the formation matters; look at the two linebackers and the right boundary corner for the Wolfpack. They all bite on this play action from the Tigers, and while it's not the best, the linebackers can get away with a mistake like this. Not the boundary corner with a deep zone responsibility on the weak side of the field.

Williams does a great job here. Look at how he re-routes himself to avoid the traffic in the middle of the field, avoiding the linebackers. He then sees Klubnik in trouble and re-routes again off his drag upfield, and since the corner has his eyes in the backfield and didn't get enough depth, Williams cuts in front of his face and springs wide-open for Klubnik.

Klubnik gets drilled but makes a perfect throw, and Williams tracks the ball down for a touchdown. Great play from Clemson, and even better route running from Williams.

For NC State, I wish the corner had more depth, but no one knows how this play was installed so that he could've been reacting properly; he just got unlucky here.

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