Anatomy of a Drive: A Scandurro Story

BY TIM SCANDURRO

ANATOMY OF A DRIVE

“Do or do not.  There is no ‘try.’

During the first half Saturday night against Duke, Jake Retzlaff turned in about as flawless a performance as a college quarterback can. He was decisive, accurate, smart, athletic, and virtually unstoppable as a passer and runner.

But Duke got a touchdown pass right before the first half ended to pull within two scores, and then on the ensuing third quarter possession Retzlaff threw two incompletions and then fumbled the ball away, leading to Duke’s second consecutive touchdown and trimming the lead to a single score, 24-16.

Gulp.  The next drive figured to be not only the single most important one of the young season, but maybe one of the most consequential drives in the long history of Tulane football.  We have a staff and a team and a national opportunity that isn’t guaranteed in the future.  We’re not going to squander that first half, and check out of the national conversation in mid-September, are we?  And on national television, with this big crowd, against THAT quarterback?  Fingernails were being chewed, and thoughts were racing.

It was a make or break situation, starting from our 25 yard line.   Here we go:

1-10: We call a play fake bootleg right, but Duke’s stud DE Wesley Williams (7.5 sacks, 14.5 TFL and 2 blocked kicks a year ago) isn’t fooled.  Retzlaff slings the ball in the direction of Johnny Pascuzzi to avoid the sack.  Incomplete.

2-10: Coach Craddock dials up a screen pass for Arnold Barnes.   Under pressure because both of his tackles (who weren’t part of the designed convoy) got beat, Retzlaff tries to lob it to Barnes and doesn’t see Duke DT David Anderson who dropped underneath it.  Anderson drops an easy interception that he would have probably turned into a defensive touchdown.  If he hadn’t gotten his hands on the ball, it very likely would have been intercepted by Duke corner Kimari Robinson, who closed hard and beat Jack Hollifield’s attempted block. 

Phew.  This was the kind of decision the staff worried about and why Brendan Sullivan was ahead of Jake in the QB battle when he got hurt. Counting the last drive, this was the fifth straight negative result play for Retzlaff.  But he just got a gift.  What would he do with it?

3-10:  We align in a trips formation left with Duda Barnes wide to the sideline.  On the snap he just turns and faces the quarterback, while the other two eligible receivers run downfield.  Seeing that Duke was playing off, Retzlaff immediately snaps a throw out to Barnes, who headed up field.  He was met a couple of yards shy of the first down by a Duke DB and ran through him to get the first down.

A word about that throw.  One of the things that makes Retzlaff a special passer isn’t just the velocity of his throws; it’s the arm angle and how fast he releases the football, especially on these quick perimeter throws.  Duda made the first down by a yard but if that throw is a second later getting out there--if that throw was made, for example, by Darian Mensah—that tackle attempt is being made five yards short of the first down rather than two.  It’s a game of inches and angles, of windows opening and quickly closing.   On that play we maximized them.  First down at our 36.

1-10:  Retzlaff is pressured again by Duke’s Williams and snaps a throw out into the right flat looking for tight end Justyn Reid.  Because he couldn’t set and drive the ball and had to throw it side-armed to get around Williams, it’s a little off target and glances off the hands of Reid.  Incomplete.

That throw, though.  The play started on the left hash, and Jake threw it off balance outside the numbers on the opposite side of the field.  You need a hose to do that. Mensah can’t make that throw, and few college quarterbacks can, without it turning into a house call for the opponent. 

2-10:  Javin Gordon runs for no gain.  We now face another third and ten, the absolute worst situation to be in against this defensive front.

3-10:  Jake uses his wheels again, scrambling to the right with plenty of room.  But two yards short of the first down he slides, and by rule the ball is marked where he started to slide, not where he actually hit the ground.  The play took place near our bench, and it’s a fair bet that the words "GET DOWN" were either being yelled from the sideline or were being played on a loop in Jake’s head, after the fumble on the last series.  But with this quarterback, it’s kind of like asking Aaron Judge to bunt. Unfortunate result, and now we have a fourth and two from our own 45.

4-2:  We take a timeout to discuss what to do.  These fourth down calls make or break games, and they can make or break teams and seasons. My goodness, the pressure.

Not that long ago almost all coaches would punt in this situation, but about 20 years ago a Cal-Berkley economics professor named Roemer used something called the Bellman Equation, a “dynamic programming equation associated with discrete-time optimization problems,” to demonstrate statistically that coaches needed to be more aggressive on fourth down.  This is the Bellman Equation:  Ei Di(gt) Vi=Pgt + Bgt Ei Di(gt+1) Vi-get. 

So these days almost all coaching staffs, ours included,  have analytics staffers and a chart that helps them make these decisions.   But a chart isn’t a living, breathing human being making a decision that will be seen and dissected by hundreds of thousands of viewers, not to mention all the players and coaches who have invested so much to get to this moment.

“Everybody in the stadium knows, hey, this is a big play,” Bill Belichick said about this situation.  "It's easy to sit there and apply a formula, but it's not always the easiest thing to do in a game," former Steelers coach Bill Cowher once said about Professor Roemer’s study.  "There's so much more involved with the game than just sitting there, looking at the numbers and saying, 'OK, these are my percentages, then I'm going to do it this way,' because that one time it doesn't work could cost your team a football game, and that's the thing a head coach has to live with, not the professor.  If we all listened to the professor, we may be all looking for professor jobs."

Add to this the fact that Duke’s disruptive defensive line is the anchor and strength of their football team. All of this weight sat on the shoulders of Jon Sumrall Saturday night.  We had just given Duke a short field touchdown, and we couldn’t afford to give them another one.  At the same time we were reeling since the end of the first half, and needed to change the trajectory of the football game.

I ran the situation and score through my AI program Sunday, which told me “the better call is to punt in this situation, and the analytics generally support that decision given the combination of field position, down and distance and game state.”  When I tweaked it by noting that Duke had scored the last 13 points to make it 24-16, AI told me “I’d still lean toward punting, but it’s a much closer call now.” 

I’m glad AI wasn’t coaching my football team, because you all know what happened next. Coach sent Retzlaff and the offense back out with three plays, depending on Duke’s alignment: a run option, a pass option, and a delay of game/punt option.  Good luck, by the way, getting Jake Retzlaff to choose Door Number Three.  He called his own number and clawed forward for three yards  after being initially stopped by the scrum in front of him.  First down on our 48.  Gutsy call.  Gutsy run.  And coupled with the next four plays, it broke Duke.

1-10:  We stay aggressive and Jake throws an absolute seed to Omari Hayes on an over route for 19 yards.  Now we are at their 33.

1-10: Brendan Sullivan checks in and executes a fake reverse/pass to tight end Johnny Pascuzzi for 11 yards and another first down.  We have them totally on their heels now.

1-10: Retzlaff hits Hayes again on one of those quick shortstop-like whip throws in the flat, and ten yards later we have another first down at their 11 yard line.

1-10: Retzlaff runs for his fourth touchdown.  He started it by turning to his left to execute a play fake, but Zu Mobley went right to engage a blitzer so the fake action fooled no one other than Jake himself.  No problem. Undaunted, he took off straight up the gut of the Duke defense, broke the tackle of a linebacker at the ten, and barreled in from there headfirst.  It capped an exhausting but exhilarating 11 plays and 75 yards of equal parts drama, tension and brilliance.

The touchdown play and the drive as a whole embodied a quarterback, a football team and its city:  far from perfect, maybe a little reckless at times, “lots to clean up” as the coaches like to say.  But also resilient, confident, aggressive and talented. 

And joyous.  In the locker room afterwards Coach Sumrall chose Jake to lead the Hullaballoo, “even though he fumbled.”  Jake laughed and led the cheer with gusto amid his emotional team.  All week he heard about the other team’s quarterback, the one with all the money and cars and investment advisers.  In contrast, Jake Retzlaff showed up on campus six weeks ago after a sensationalized ‘scandal’ at BYU.  He came here as a walk-on with no scholarship and no promises, financial or otherwise.  Just plenty of grit, a big heart and boundless confidence.

He didn’t get a feature piece in The Athletic this past week like his counterpart did, so he  had to do his talking between the lines Saturday night.  All he did was thoroughly outclass last year’s quarterback and bring home an enormous win on an enormous stage for his newly adopted teammates, coaches, university and city.  And on one magical night highlighted by one memorable drive, he made an emphatic statement to the college football world about who he is. 

We’re only three games in, but so far it probably feels like a redemptive miracle to him that he’s here, and the feeling is mutual.  We saved him, and he saved us.

Now there’s a story The Athletic ought to write.