VERMILLION — It’s not often a college football team lines up an offensive lineman as a slot receiver, but the University of South Dakota football team did so on Saturday.
At the 12:27 mark of the third quarter of USD’s 42-17 victory over Northern Iowa, the Coyotes were at UNI 23-yard line with a new set of downs. They came to the line with nothing unusual, until quarterback Aidan Bouman signaled a shift. Five players went in motion to the outside, including right tackle Bryce Henderson who shifted out to the left slot receiver spot.
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He wasn’t thrown the pass, in fact, he didn’t even run a route. The throw eventually went incomplete downfield to JJ Galbreath, but it was a perfect example of how the Coyote offense implemented creativity against the Panthers and how deep in the playbook USD went.
This is something USD continues to implement into its offensive plan each week. Every game the offense seems to be increasing its usage of creatively through avenues such as pre-snap motion, jet sweeps, end-arounds and direct snaps just to name a few. Head coach Bob Nielson said the introduction of more creativity and wrinkles into play calls has been a big boost to the offense and gave credit to the offensive staff for the superior implementation within the scheme.
“Coach [Josh] Davis and that staff are doing a really good job of putting a plan together,” Nielson said. “Finding some what I wouldn’t call them trick plays, but maybe finding some niche plays that are based on some of the things that we’re doing well. They’re a little bit of a counter to that, and and we hit on a lot of those.”
Throughout the game, there were plenty of creative plays that were successful. For example, Travis Theis took a direct snap near the goal line that resulted in a touchdown. But even outside of the offense, USD was getting creative. On a second-quarter punt return, Carter Bell fielded the punt but then threw a lateral across the field to Keyondray Jones-Logan that went for extra yardage that Bell wouldn’t have gained had he run it back.
Nathan Swaffar / Mitchell Republic
But undoubtedly the most innovative and successful play came courtesy of backup quarterback Nevan Cremascoli. He came into the game for one play out of the first half two-minute timeout. He took the snap, rolled to his right and looked set to run like he has many times this season. Instead, he lofted a pass over the top of the defense to AJ Coons for a 37-yard touchdown.
But play calls can only be as good as the players who have to execute it to perfection. Luckily for the Coyotes, executing these unusual plays has worked very well to this point. The Coyotes (5-1) will take their high-flying offense — averaging 46.2 points per game against four FCS opponents — on the road to Youngstown State on Saturday, Oct. 19.
“It’s always nice to have a one-off play that’s going to keep the defense honest,” Bouman said. “It’s our job to execute those and I thought we did a really good job of that. Obviously, we had the one Nevan to AJ, which was awesome. Just plays like that are huge for a team’s momentum.”
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The execution was something that Nielson also pointed out as a high point, especially when some new plays are introduced in the same week as the game.
“You get a couple of days of practice every week, you put in a few of those kinds of new wrinkles in and then you got to go out and execute them on Saturday,” Nielson said. “Our guys, we haven’t been perfect by any sense of imagination, but we we’ve been able to execute some of those things at a high enough level that we’ve been able to be successful.”
Nathan Swaffar is a sports reporter for the Mitchell Republic. He joined the Mitchell Republic in July 2024 after graduating from the University of Kansas in May of 2024 with a degree in journalism and a minor in history. He covers a variety of prep and collegiate sports throughout South Dakota including USD Football.