Master class chess matches of 2022: The Veer and Shoot offense vs the Flyover defense

Oklahoma's Veer and Shoot offensive scheme had to deal with Iowa State's Flyover defense in 2022 in an interesting clash which hasn't played out many times yet in college football.

The Veer and Shoot offense the Flyover defense occupy similar realms of college football. They’ve been circling each other for years but with very few and certainly no high-profile clashes. Ole Miss and Arkansas squared off using varieties of both the offensive and defensive schemes back in 2021 but that match up wasn’t anything like what we got in 2022.

With the hire of Art Briles’ son-in-law Jeff Lebby, Oklahoma veered into the shooting offense and thus set up the confrontation with the original Flyover defense operated by Matt Campbell and Jon Heacock’s Iowa State program.

I may as well spoil the ending and reveal the outcome was a 27-13 Oklahoma victory in Ames, IA. However, while the Sooners carried the day it was tough sledding for the offense. Special teams and defense did most of the heavy lifting and the score was 20-13 late in the game before Oklahoma finally pulled away after consecutive Hunter Dekkers interceptions, the second of which was returned inside the five.

The Sooners ran the ball 47 times for 182 yards at 3.9 ypc with one score while quarterback Dillon Gabriel went 15-26 for 148 yards at 5.7 ypa with one score and zero picks. Punter Michael Turk added another touchdown pass to placekicker Zach Schmidt on a fake field goal. Schmidt directly scored 15 of OU’s 27 points between his reception, three extra points, and two made field goals.

So Oklahoma won the day but you could argue the Flyover came out ahead in this matchup. Let’s dive deeper into this specific battle and its dynamics.