Whether you call it the Tush Push or the Brotherly Shove, when the Philadelphia Eagles need a yard, they call upon one play.
The NFL is a copycat league, and football’s a copycat sport, so it should be no surprise that the NFL’s most infamous short-yardage play is being put to use in college football. In Week 5, at least 11 college teams ran the play. LSU, Penn State, and Minnesota were among the teams that scored on it from goal line situations. One of the multiple times the Gophers ran the play, they needed only a yard on fourth-and-inches but ended up plunging into the end zone from the 2-yard line.
The concept for the push play is fairly simple. It’s a souped-up QB sneak that involves other players in the backfield pushing the quarterback to give him extra momentum. The offensive line, often in four-point stances so they can stay low, drives forward at the snap to create a surge, and the QB pumps his legs behind them to fall forward. The unique element is he’s aided by a teammate or multiple teammates shoving him from behind. On some plays, the offensive linemen can also be pushed from behind to add force as well.
Sometimes the offense lines up in what looks a lot like the end-of-game victory formation where a QB would take a knee to milk the clock.
Other times, it can come from an old-school T formation where the pushers get a bit of a head start. Penn State ran four plays in a row out of the formation (as seen below) against Northwestern. Three of them were sneaks where quarterback Drew Allar got pushed, while one was a handoff to one of the running backs in the T. On the third sneak, Allar finally got pushed to paydirt.
During the game, Big Ten Network broadcaster Mark Followill relayed how Penn State offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich explained to him that often, quarterbacks lose momentum in a quarterback sneak when the defense undercuts the offensive line. But when the offense pushes the quarterback, they can drive him and keep him upright.
But Oregon State took things to another level in its game against Utah.
After running the conventional tush push on the first drive of the game, the Beavers came out on a fourth-and-1 in a similar look in the second half, and used the defense’s assumption to their advantage. The result: a 45-yard touchdown run not from QB DJ Uiagalelei, but running back Silas Bolden after a deft pitch play to the edge.
Oregon State's fake tush push is this week's #TUMSworthy moment! 🦫 @TUMSOfficial pic.twitter.com/UKO9JYlIaK
— Pac-12 Network (@Pac12Network) October 3, 2023
“We barely got [the first] one; Utah defended it well,” Beavers coach Jonathan Smith says. “It did help to set up the next play because I did feel like we wanted to run the sneak first. And it just played out perfectly. I mean, we've got a fourth-and-one where we ran the sneak, and later in the game the stage was completely set. Same thing, same formation and yeah, obviously it worked real well.”
There are some small things to notice between the two plays. The first one is the subtle differences in each formation.
On Play 1, Oregon State lined up the conventional way, and they used the element of surprise to break the huddle quickly and get to the line of scrimmage to try to catch the Utes off guard.
On the second play the Beavers actually swapped out one of the pushers in the backfield for tight end Jack Velling, and the end man on the line of scrimmage is in a two point stance instead of a four-point stance. Velling is also lined up a little bit more square to the line of scrimmage.
He begins moving laterally to the edge of the formation right before the snap (legal motion), which further helps him get to the edge to seal the edge for Bolden.
If Utah had enough time maybe it could have realized something was amiss, but in the midst of the chaos of a short-yardage situation, and the fact that it thought it’d seen this before, it was a perfect trap to spring. What really helps here is the element of surprise.
“Just by alignment, everybody in the stadium’s thinking it’s—what do you call it, the tush push?” Smith says. “We try to time it up to like, obviously Jack, who spring it from the outside, he knows the snap count and to be able to go slightly in motion right before the ball gets snapped, like so not a giveaway, but he needed to get out early, to be out in front for Silas.”
It’s not the first time Oregon State has been a fourth-down innovator either. The Beavers ran a play in 2020 when they snapped it through their quarterback’s legs and threw a pass for a big gain. They work with a data company called Championship Analytics to develop an optimal fourth-down strategy to balance the risk and go for it when it makes the most sense.
In 2005, the NFL removed the prohibition on pushing players from behind. That same year, the Bush Push play happened in college when USC’s Reggie Bush pushed quarterback Matt Leinart over the goal line to beat Notre Dame in a play that should have been penalized because it was against NCAA rules at the time.
There was no flag, and the play will forever live in college football lore because of that. In 2013, the NCAA changed the rule and allowed players to be pushed. Eagles coach Nick Sirianni has referenced the Bush Push as one of the origins for the Eagles’ version.
Like the Eagles have with Jalen Hurts, the Beavers have in Uiagalelei, a QB who’s built like a tight end at 6'4 ", 252 pounds. Their size helps make the play work because of their leg strength. Hurts famously squats more than 600 pounds. The Eagles went 37–41 on it in the 2022 season, according to research done by the Associated Press, but it’s not as automatic as Philadelphia and Oregon State make it seem. The Tush Push was run three times during Week 4 in NFL games and failed. Out of the 23 instances Sports Illustrated reviewed in college football’s Week 5, the play was successful 21 times. And as the play spread across CFB, FIU got stuffed in a game against New Mexico State to start Week 6.
The Patriots, Chargers, and Giants all attempted the #Eagles' tush-push this week, and all three teams failed.
— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) October 3, 2023
It's not automatic. Perhaps the #Eagles are just really good at it...
Here are all three plays:pic.twitter.com/tFKf0emmqQ https://t.co/8sRLfhvfr8
While it might seem obvious to stick a bigger offensive player back there like an actual tight end, it’s not worth it for Smith due to the quarterback’s familiarity with handling the ball—which can be tricky in a normal center-quarterback exchange under center, much less one where so much is going on. You also wouldn’t want an untrained player to make the pitch Uiagalelei did.
There is also the risk of injury involved in the rugby-like scrum that resembles the sports’ earliest mass plays in the 19th century. For that reason, Oregon State doesn’t really practice it at full speed.
“It’s not an easy thing to practice, so no, we really don’t,” Smith says. “We definitely kind of snap it, but give the scout team a heads-up it’s coming. But we don’t really try to recreate it because with so many bodies on the ground diving at the knees and all that you don’t want to get a bunch of reps at it.”
The New York Giants didn’t go full speed with it, either, and had two of their offensive linemen get hurt on it when they ran the play. It’s also dangerous because the most effective way to stop it is, simply diving at the knees of the offense line, exposing players to being crushed or stepped on or rolled up by a tangled mass of bodies. Part of that is why there are some people in the game who want it banned. There isn’t really a complex schematic blueprint for how to stop it, either, and even the best football minds, like Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay, are somewhat flummoxed by how well the Eagles run it.
“If you get four of those D-linemen dug in there, just chop the knees of the O-line; it’s not easy. The first one we have, we barely got that thing, and we only needed a foot or two,” Smith says. “You go low enough where this O-line and quarterback can’t keep their feet on the ground. Yeah. But of course they know you’re just diving on the ground for any outside type play, they’re more or less dead in the water.”
Utah found out the hard way that the next step in fourth-down ingenuity doesn’t just involve a little pushing and shoving. If you’re not careful, while a defender is on his belly, a running back may be out the gate and heading to the end zone.
