Gadget plays.

GADGET (TRICK) PLAYS HAVE been around since Amos Alonzo Stagg, and the players and fans love them. They bring a lot of life to the offense and put a lot of gray into the hair of the opposing coaches.

A typical example: On October 6, 1993, with six minutes left to play, we found ourselves trailing by five points and going nowhere with the football. With the opponents shutting down our big-play receiver, we couldn't seem to move the ball.

Since we had pretty good field position at the moment, we decided to put in a call for "007"--our players' name for one of our good gadget plays.

From our slot formation to the left, our quarterback took the ball from center and immediately threw it to our inside receiver (X, the slot man), as shown in the diagram.

The receiver then hit our outside receiver (Y) running a delayed pattern. Y, our best receiver, took two steps inside to bring the defense up hard, then took off on his fly pattern, uncovered.

The play worked like a charm. Our end caught the ball in stride and took it all the way to the end zone, giving us a 22-21 victory.

Our philosophy on gadget plays is to run at least one per game. We let our players name the play and then work on it just as we would any other play in our offense.