Lynnsanity
A full explanation of how Kentucky played a wide receiver at quarterback for an entire season and still won eight games.
It isn’t very often that an offense almost completely removes its passing attack and manages to get better. In modern college football, because of the speed and size of defenders, the common thinking is that you have to be able to pass at least somewhat effectively to have a successful offense.
In a lot of cases, that thinking is correct. The idea of using the run to set up the pass or vice versa largely isn’t as true as college football fans think, but having an offense that can at least pretend to be able to do both is important for balance and play calling.
There are exceptions, specifically at the service academies, where a consistently good running attack with built-in misdirection and time management can be enough to create a successful unit, but more college football teams aren’t willing to go that far. So, in most cases, if you’re a college football team that wants to score points, you’ll probably need to be able to pass at least a little.
In 2019, Kentucky bucked that trend in such a severe and jarring way that if you didn’t know what you were looking at when viewing the Wildcats’ offensive stats, you’d probably either think that this was a team running the wishbone in the 1970s.
In fact, with a blind comparison, 2019 Kentucky and 1978 Oklahoma are almost indistinguishable from one another. The 3.7 yards per carry average on the second image is a giveaway of a fullback, but in terms of yards accumulated and number of players who carried the ball well, there isn’t a massive difference between the two.
Kentucky didn’t do this for fun, or just to see if it would work. It did it for the same reason that any team or coach does something weird: fear. Mark Stoops and his staff were, for good reason, terrified of what would happen if they didn’t do something weird. After losing starting quarterback Terry Wilson to a patella injury in the second week of the season, Kentucky gave the nod to Troy transfer Sawyer Smith at quarterback.
Smith was fine at first, putting up decent numbers in a losing effort against Florida, but injuring his wrist in the process. After a shoulder injury against Mississippi State a week later, Smith staggered into a game with South Carolina, completed 34 percent of his passes, and looked, generally, like someone injured that shouldn’t have been playing football yet.
Without a viable third-string option, and staring down a 2-3 start with seven remaining games that would only be more difficult, Stoops, who has quickly established himself as one of the more creative problem solvers in coaching, turned to wideout Lynn Bowden. Bowden played quarterback in high school, but was less of a passer and more of the classic “just give the best player on the field the ball every play” situation.
To save its season, Kentucky took a page from that book, almost completely abandoned the pass (Bowden threw 74 times on the season, and went over double-digits for attempts in a game just four times), and gave the ball to the best player on the field.
It worked infinitely better than it probably should have. After that 2-3 start, which saw the Cats average just 23.4 points per game, Bowden managed to rally the team to an eight win season, going 6-2 in his games as quarterback. The points per game jumped up to 29.5, and the improvements are even more striking when factoring in strength of schedule and advanced metrics.
For a full explanation of what these stats mean, I’ve included a glossary at the bottom of the page.
In the first five games, Kentucky played against an average defensive SP+ rating of 28.24, roughly 66th in the nation. In the last eight, the Wildcats faced off against an average defensive rating of 26.4, about 59th nationally. Not a huge difference, but the fact that Kentucky improved by more than six points a game – playing against at least marginally better defenses – with a wide receiver at quarterback, is just unbelievable.
The advanced team profile stats are just as striking. With Bowden at the helm, Kentucky more than doubled its rushing production per game, from 164.8 to 350.5, despite carrying the ball only 14 more times per game (35 to 49.5). Turnovers dropped from 2 per game to 1.25, meaning that not only did Kentucky get better at moving the ball, but it also got better at holding onto it, essentially morphing into an option team on the fly.
In the rushing metrics, power success dropped slightly (0.6108 to 0.5951), but almost every other stat saw improvement. Stuff rate dropped from 0.178 to 0.157, line yards jumped from 92.2 to 143.5, second-level yards moved from 31.4 to 56.75 and open field yards nearly tripled, from 37.6 to 110.88. Passing PPA dropped significantly, but rushing PPA moved from 0.09966 to 0.3485875.
Overall success rate (39.4% to 42%), standard down success rate (44% to 47%) and passing down success rate (27.8% to 30%) all improved, as did explosiveness (1.232 to 1.3825), meaning that not only did Bowden add big plays into the offense, he made it more efficient on a play-to-play basis, even without any threat of a pass.
To make that shift successfully, and to build an offense around Bowden in the middle of the season, offensive coordinator Eddie Gran took inspiration from option offenses all over the country, and designed a system with misdirection built into the personnel groupings and blocking schemes, to keep defenses from being able to swarm.
The most crucial part of the offense was the line. While Bowden’s ability as a playmaker was obviously important to what Kentucky was doing, the movement and ability of the guys up front has to be credited. Gran implemented as many pulls and unique looks as you’ll ever see in a modern offense, to create numbers advantages even against loaded boxes.
Here, Kentucky is in 11 personnel, with a halfback and a tight end, and three wideouts on the field. The strength of the offense is to the short side of the field, which Louisville picks up both from the start, thanks to the twin wideouts, and then confirms with itself when the halfback, tight end and three linemen all also block towards the weak side.
The safeties and defensive linemen all react by flying to that short side of the field, as do all but three linebackers and the remaining cornerback in man on the perimeter. That’s exactly by design. Bowden fakes an option pitch to sell the short side just a little more, and to give time to his pulling guard and tackle to establish themselves on the play side. Once they cross behind the center, Bowden squares himself to the defense to read his blocks, and gets going.
The blocking and Bowden’s read are both flawless. The linemen pick up the two extremes, the innermost linebacker and the linebacker trying to set the edge, while Bowden reads that remaining linebacker and dares him to beat him to the edge. He can’t and with only three blocks on the entire open side of the field, Bowden has more than enough room to run for a first down. Kentucky managed to take seven defenders completely out of the play, while maintaining two lead blockers for one of the best runners in America. That’s about as good as it gets, when designing plays to get the ball into the hands of your playmaker. The more open space involved, the better.
This was an approach that Kentucky used a lot when trying to spring either Bowden or one of the halfbacks into open space. Without the threat downfield of a pass to hold defenders in place, the best way to open up room for running is to sell out on misdirection, and to depend heavily on individual blocks.
Here, on what looks like a read option but could be a designed QB run, the entire line is blocking to the strong side of the field, and Kentucky has trips and a tight end all on that side of the field as well. The message to the defense is clear, and because you can’t really just ignore nine guys playing to one side of the field, Louisville does as Kentucky tells it to do. Almost the entire defense steps first to that strong side of the field, setting Kentucky up perfectly.
The linebackers get caught in the wash by the linemen, and with safeties too far away from the line of scrimmage, the edge defender is the only person anywhere near Bowden to make a play with at least 20 yards. To take him out, the halfback involved in the option fake just runs straight at the end and blocks him head on, because even if his block isn’t good (in this case it is), Bowden is going to beat anyone to the edge if the defender has a running back to get around as well.
Kentucky didn’t just do this with Bowden, as mentioned earlier. Overloading one side of the field and running to the opposite side was a favorite for Gran regardless of the ball carrier, because it worked against basically everyone that Kentucky played. It’s the same idea here. Four receivers on the strong side of the field, drawing away four defenders and holding those linebackers in, in case of a screen.
The line doesn’t sell it as much this time, basically looking to block regularly, but Kavosiey Smoke makes a great play and pops outside, where there’s no defensive resistance to stop him. Same concept, same result.
Because Kentucky was so effective gashing defenses with this look on the perimeter, it made inside running easier as well. You can see the exact effect Kentucky’s overload approach had on Lousiville’s defense here. The edge rusher sets a much harder edge, and looks to get outside when the running back tries to block him.
There’s still attention paid to the trips right, but only from three defensive backs, because the linebackers have been fooled one too many times. The biggest change is the safety hanging right outside of the right tackle, serving as a second edge defender to keep Bowden contained. He’s not budging inside for anything, because he doesn’t want to give Bowden an inch on the outside.
Of course, Bowden reads this and the edge rusher, hesitates for a second, and then ruins Louisville defensive coordinator Bryan Brown’s day by darting inside of that edge rusher and right past the overly-cautious safety. Just another benefit of putting the ball in the hands of your best player: you don’t have to tell him to improvise and make plays, he’ll just do it.
Of course, there were some more traditional option plays in the playbook, with regular blocking, like this power read which sees the play side linebacker isolated and read, but these plays worked because of the weird stuff. Kentucky ran in ways that looked completely unreasonable to defenses, essentially as a substitute for passing. The threat to all parts of the field was still very much present, it was just present in a way that put every single defender in conflict on every play.
The best way to stop Kentucky was to do the opposite of what you’re supposed to do, and college defenders just can’t think like that consistently. I’m confident in saying that if Kentucky plays Bowden for the whole season, it probably wins 10 games, and honestly, that Florida game was so close that I could be swayed to 11 (bowl game included). This was a masterclass in offensive play design, and in working with what you have. On top of that, it was an absolute blast to watch.
Even the more traditional power runs like this QB blast were successful and fun to watch because of the kind of player Bowden is. Even in close quarters, he’s so aggressive, slippery and tough that it felt like he could score on any play.
I think that toughness is the best and most underrated thing about this offense, and specifically about Bowden. It’s very easy to fall into a pit of thinking that option offenses are gimmicky or all about speed and finesse without power, but this team was absolutely mashing ass in 2019. They were one of the most physical teams in the most physical conference, and their 6-foot-1, 199 pound quarterback was the meanest of the bunch, which he highlights here by hitting a Missouri safety as he crosses into the end zone, for seemingly no reason other than “ he wanted to hit someone.”
That’s no gimmick. The way that this offense ran and the way that it blocked would make a lot of old option football coaches very proud, because there was no shying away from the mud in this group. This was a classic, grind-it-out offense modernized and built around a player that fits that style perfectly. Honestly, it’s a shame that Bowden didn’t get to do this for three years, because while he’s certainly a legend in Lexington, his ability as a signal caller deserves significantly more recognition around the nation than it got.
Up next: Pat Narduzzi is so close to an awesome defense
Graphics by Kristen Lillemoen
Because I mention quite a few advanced metrics in this one, I’ve included this advanced metrics glossary, to explain what each stat that I mention measures, and what some of the abbreviations stand for. All definitions are from collegefootballdata.com, as are the advanced stats.
Expected Points Added (EPA, also known as PPA) uses Expected Points to measure the outcome of a play. It takes the EP value from the beginning of a play (e.g. 2nd and 5 at the 50) and subtracts it from the EP value resulting from the play (e.g. rush for 10 yards results in 1st and 10 from the 40).
Expected Points (EP) assumes that not all yard lines are created equal. In other words, each yardline is assigned a point value and measures the number of points that would be expected to be scored based on down, distance, and field position. A negative value means that the opposing team would be expected to score the next points in the game.
Line Yards attempts to measure the number of running yards which are attributed to the offensive line.
Open Field Yards measures average yards per carry that comes from over 10 yards past the LOS.
Passing Downs are defined as 2nd downs with 7 or more yards to go or 3rd and 4th downs with 5 or more yards to go.
Power Success measures the percentage of running plays on 3rd or 4th down from 2 yards or less in which an offense either converted into a 1st down or scored a TD. 1st and 2nd down and goal plays within the 2 yard line are also included.
Second Level Yards measures the average yards per carry that are between 5 and 10 yards from the LOS.
Standard Downs are anything that is not considered to be a passing down.
Success Rate is an efficiency metric that determines the success of a play.
Stuff Rate is the percentage of running plays stopped at or behind the line of scrimmage.