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Insight and Analysis November 6, 2017

Ferguson: Why Jones and Masoli need to be back in Hamilton

David Chidley/CFL.ca

CFL.ca
@TSN_Marsh

3,230 days is a long time.

3,230 days ago, Single Ladies by Beyonce was atop the Billboard Top 40 music charts, Barack Obama had just been elected president and Montreal had just hosted its first Grey Cup since 2001 as Henry Burris and the Calgary Stampeders were victorious.

At the same time, a young dual-threat quarterback was taking over the reigns at the University of Oregon Ducks football program.

His name? Jeremiah Masoli.

On Dec. 30, 2008, surrounded by my high school football teammates in Kingston, Ont., I turned on the TV to find the best available football game which turned out to be Oregon vs. Oklahoma State in the Holiday Bowl.

The game would involve future Cowboys star Dez Bryant, NFL work horse running back LeGarrette Blount, Patriots free safety Patrick Chung and current BC Lions running back Jeremiah Johnson among others.

What stood out to me was not a name or a player but the design of an offensive play. At 17-years-old I was already enamoured with football play design and bringing new ideas to my high school coaches, which made something I saw that late December night in 2008 open my eyes wide.

Oregon was – and remains – well known for innovation and the use of spread offence concepts. In 2008 Chip Kelly was still offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for the Ducks before becoming Oregon head coach and being hired away to the NFL. He dialed up a type of triple option I hadn’t seen before.

Instead of the traditional design below featuring a read running back (1) and a pitch man (2), like this:

Kelly, Masoli and the Ducks left the pitch man hanging by the sideline:

The concept achieves the same goal of stretching the field horizontally and forcing defensive backs to make a decision between quarterback and “pitch man” – if you can still call him that – but it looks dramatically different, especially when you’re a Canadian teenager who has never seen it before.

Masoli ran it in the second quarter of that 2008 bowl game with suboptimal results, but the potential was there and the concept was sound.

The Ducks came back to it later in the game a couple of times including this better executed attempt:

And again from the cable cam:

I don’t pretend to know the origins of the play or the first team to adjust the concept of triple option to this new version, but I know a guy who might, and before you ask, the guy I know is not Damon Allen, who apparently ran the play in 2003:

I asked June Jones about the play Saturday morning at Tiger-Cats locker room clean out.

“It’s been around for a while and I’ve used similar stuff for a long time but never that exact concept, and of course with the extra guy up here (Canada) it’s changed even more from when we used to call it. Jeremiah (Masoli) and Brandon (Banks) started messing around with it a couple weeks ago and I liked it so we kept it ready”.

This is the beauty of Jones coaching from the outside looking in. He appears to let players play and any good idea is judged on its merit not its source of origin.

I asked Masoli Saturday about how the concept came to life in Hamilton and he echoed Jones, saying “I used to run it at Oregon and we had a slant there (from Brandon) but in practice about a month ago we started trying some different stuff and I just told him (Banks) to stay out there because he’s so dangerous in space.”

The Ticats called this new version of an old favourite for both Jones and Masoli in the second quarter of Friday’s final game with Masoli admitting – in my opinion too harshly on himself – that he “missed Banks.”

Here’s how the play is drawn up with a 12th Canadian man involved being Landon Rice at weak side tight end.

And here’s how it played out Friday:

Later in the game, with the ball on the other hash, Hamilton flipped the formation with Rice still at tight end:

And went right back to the play that stuck with me since 2008, with the best results yet:

The end cut is a thing of beauty. Masoli gets to use his creativity and playmaking ability to backhand shovel the rock 15 yards to Banks. Two Montreal defensive backs take bad angles and Banks is so elusive that big man Landon Rice, who slipped out from his tight end position, never had to touch anyone!

One more time with super slow motion, because football:

I went back in the football highlight time machine that is YouTube with Masoli Saturday morning before he returns home to California for the off-season and discussed what allowed him to have so much success in the second half of the season. Jeremiah pulled up clips from 2008 against Arizona where he ran this concept or that one, which reminded him of another thing, and then another.

It went on and on, the whole time Masoli speaking with an enthusiasm unlike a man eliminated from the playoffs who won’t play a meaningful snap for over six months.

By being paired with a coach with deep-rooted college football qualities, Masoli has been able to re-create the dynamic college player he was nearly a decade ago.

Case in point? That big run Masoli had Friday night. I told him how crazy it was Montreal didn’t leave an end or linebacker to contain the threat of quarterback run.

His response? “Oh, that wasn’t a read, it was just a run play and I pulled it.”

A bunch of white uniforms chasing Masoli unsuccessfully down the field. Looks familiar doesn’t it?

I asked if that free-wheeling, on-the-fly decision-making, risk-taking style is a normal thing that June Jones accepts from his quarterback, to which Masoli replied with a sentence that confirmed my previous belief that both Masoli (free agent) and Jones (not under contract) NEED to be back in 2018.

“He (Jones) just wants us to make plays, doesn’t really care how. If I mess that up, of course he wouldn’t be happy, but he knows I’ll make more good plays than bad ones when given the chance.”

The chance and a coach who believes in him. It’s all Jeremiah Masoli appears to need in order to succeed the way he did statistically in the second half of 2017.

As we wrapped up our chat about the ups and downs of 2017, I showed Masoli a clip of Ole Miss – where he spent some time after Oregon – running the same refreshed version of the triple option a couple years ago:

Then I showed him the Chiefs running it with tight end Travis Kelce on Monday Night Football last week:

Jeremiah nodded in appreciation and called over Brandon Banks, who was ready for his 2017 exit interview with the media. Banks pointed at the screen and remarked, “wow, it’s in the league (NFL) too, we could definitely run it that way.”

Running it ‘that way’ would require both Masoli and Banks to be back next year to continue growing June Jones’ offensive package. Something all three men sound more than ready to do.