The University of Iowa University of Iowa
Stream

Breaking down the Damon Powell Tunnel Screen

start

Damond Powell had a 74-yd burst for a touchdown Saturday on a beautiful play where just about everything went right for the Hawkeyes. It started with the coverage that the Gophers gave the Hawkeyes. It looks here like Man across the board to me.

 According to Ferentz after the game, it was a tunnel screen as Iowa is going to line up with two receivers on both sides and a tight end in a stand up position.  The top side set of wideouts are just going to run the two corners out of coverage and draw the safety that you can’t see over there.  Screen Shot 2013-09-29 at 1.35.31 PM

 Then Ray Hamilton is going to go under there for a check-down just in case the tunnel screen is blown up presumably. Then everyone except the left tackle is going to come out and either blow up that second corner or to seal off anyone that is going to be chasing after Powell catches the pass.

It isn’t blown up though and Tevaun Smith goes out and gets a good stalk block on Eric Murray, the corner back on the bottom of the screen shot. The Minnesota defensive line bites hard on the screen and chases Jack Rudock, actually giving him a pretty good hit.

Screen Shot 2013-09-29 at 1.36.50 PM copy

After the completion, Powell is going to read his offensive line and Smith. Conor Boffelli and is going to stay back and seal a chasing Gopher and then from there two are going to come down on the defensive backs and the other two will stay and seal the left side of the play, giving Powell an enormous hole to work with.

From there, Powell’s speed takes over and he takes it the rest of the way himself. He outruns the defensive backs from the back-side of the play and gives Iowa a 17-0 lead.

Screen Shot 2013-09-29 at 1.37.57 PM