9 times college football teams used the funniest trick play of all: the hidden ball-carrier

In this year’s FCS playoffs, South Dakota State tried to use some trickeration to beat North Dakota State. The object of the play involves hiding a smaller member of the team behind the line of scrimmage, disguising him from the defense. SDSU decided to use 5’10 Brady Mengarelli, who sneaks in a touchdown.

The play gave the Jackrabbits an early lead, but it ultimately wasn’t enough to beat NDSU. However, the interesting part was that it was actually some revenge against a rival.

The Bison ran a similar play against SDSU back in 2012.

The concept here is simple. First, you hide a little guy behind a bunch of big guys, and you make the big guys look like they’re still setting pre-snap protection calls. Then you get two guys going the opposite way to distract the defenders and get their eyes and/or their bodies flowing in the wrong direction. And finally, you send the ball carrier the other direction with a small convoy of blockers who are unengaged. It’s similar to a fumblerooski, except the ball itself isn’t the only thing being obscured; an entire ball-carrier is, too.

Perhaps the most underrated aspect of the play: The eventual ball-carrier doesn’t fully kneel down. It would be quite the gaffe if the play couldn’t even get off of the ground from the start, and it would lead to a fun booth review.

The most famous usage was probably this in 2015, when Texas Tech used it to beat Texas. Kliff Kingsbury called it Little People, Big World, though other teams have used other names.

Western Kentucky ran the play in the 2016 Boca Raton Bowl with a twist. They faked a kneeldown and pulled it off.

Here’s the play again, this time called by Gus Malzahn when he was the offensive coordinator at Arkansas. Malzahn calls the play Woody, after the Toy Story character.

And again by Malzahn, this time at Auburn.

And again by a former Malzahn team, Arkansas State.

Malzahn’s a former high school coach. So is Hugh Freeze, who was on Ole Miss’ staff in 2006:

And it goes back even further than that. Clemson ran something similar against Tennessee in the 2004 Peach Bowl, and it resulted in a Tiger touchdown.

We salute you, offensive coordinators who have utilized the funniest trick play in football.