I mentioned in "Monday Thoughts" that Branden Ore's game-winning touchdown was a fascinating play, and after spending time breaking it down and diagramming it, I discovered that it was one of the most perfectly-executed plays the Hokie offense has had all season. Check out the diagram and description of the play that gave the Hokies their fourth win in the Orange Bowl in the last ten years.

Here's a diagram of the play, which shows the ten players involved in the play for VT and the ten players involved for Miami. The eleventh players for each team consisted of a receiver and defender split wide, and neither one had an impact in the play.

To open the diagram up in a separate browser window, so you can view it and the article at the same time, click here.

Here's how the play unfolded:

When a running play results in a back clearing the second level of the defense untouched, the following things have often happened:

The play call has caught the defense in the wrong alignment. This is the case with Meriweather (#19), who was essentially taken out of the play by the decision to blitz him off the right corner. Duane Brown didn't even have to throw a block on Meriweather and Atkins (#98). Miami's alignment also got out of whack by Morgan drawing Sharpe (#4) all the way across the field with the motion.

Offensive players wind up blocking multiple defensive players, and/or defensive players get caught up in traffic. We discussed this when we diagrammed Ore's long run against Southern Mississippi, and it happened here again. Duane Brown took care of two players, and Carlton Weatherford and Greg Boone blocked or impeded four players by themselves.

At least one defender makes the wrong read. Miami's Glenn Cook (#55)  made the biggest mistake in the whole play by overpursuing the hole. Render was supposed to block Cook, but Cook ran beyond the hole, and Render didn't even have to hit him. If you watch the film, Render ran through the hole, brushed Cook, and kept running. Cook's overpursuit and Gore's crushing block on Kareem Brown (#99) created a giant hole for Ore to run through.

At least one blocker/offensive lineman makes an exceptional play. Give Gore a gold star for flattening Brown, but give Brandon Frye two gold stars for bypassing Cook and heading out to block Jon Beason (#2). If Frye had blocked Cook, that would have left Beason alone to attempt the tackle on Ore. Frye eyeballed Cook, but in an instant, he decided to let Weatherford and/or Render have him, and Frye went across the middle and threw a textbook block on Beason, springing Ore.

Every blocker executes. There was not one blown block on this play. With every blocker executing properly, and some of them sealing off more than one defender, it left Ore untouched and even left one blocker, Render, unoccupied.

The running back makes the right read. Vision is an underappreciated asset for a running back, and Branden Ore has tremendous vision. Vision is the ability to read alignments and movement, and in a split second, figure out where the hole is going to be, often before it's there. Ore made the right read twice: he read the hole, and he read the proper side of Brandon Frye to go to. Ore cut back to the hole, then cut behind Frye, showing outstanding vision.

Tech's offensive line struggled in this game, but this play was an example of perfect execution. With the way the play broke down, Ore could have scored from anywhere on the field.