In today’s SEC, we’re seeing less and less under-center play action passing. Just about everybody prefers the “spread” offense to the traditional I formation offense.

When I was at South Carolina, coach Steve Spurrier still ran an under-center offense. As the spread offense gained traction, we went to a more gun-run type offense.

When you take a look at these play-action passes, you’ll see the difference in under center play action passing (Arkansas) and the shotgun play action (Auburn).

These are two completely different offenses, but both feed off misdirection, especially Auburn. Gus Malzahn’s system has a lot of moving parts and the shotgun play-action is very difficult to defend.

The most obvious example came on Auburn’s 2-point conversion, which was set up not only by play-action on the jet sweep and fake dive, but also a short touchdown run seconds earlier that forced Arkansas to stack the box.

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Arkansas is a heavy downhill run team, so its play-action passing is a lot more traditional. Brandon Allen has exceptional ball-handling ability and excels in this scheme.

When you run as well as Arkansas, the play action should be the quarterback’s best friend. I played with Marcus Lattimore, and when we had a play-action play called, we usually had an open receiver because the safety had his eyes in the backfield.

The art of play-action passing has sort of been lost due to the prevalence of the spread, but when you execute it, it’s a thing of beauty.

Check out Allen’s touchdown pass to Jeremy Sprinkle, set up by two run fakes and an outside receiver running a go route to take the corner away from the target. Auburn never had a chance.

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There are several times during the game that a hard play-action could be used. I would say that it is most used on third-and-short situations or first down.

Allen used it perfection on this 1st-and-10 pass play to Hunter Henry, which set up a touchdown.

The whole point of play-action is to get the linebackers and safeties to bite up to the line, or free them, and hit a wide receiver over their heads or across the field.

The key, obviously is you have to have a solid run game. If your running game stinks, then defenders won’t bite, and it ends up being a waste of movement.

In the SEC, where we play big boy football, the best teams have a very strong run game and a quarterback who knows how to handle the ball.

Play-action seems to be a lost art, but the quarterbacks who can do it well have a major advantage, as you can see in these videos: Guys are usually wide open after a hard run fake, and it makes it very easy to complete passes.