FAYETTEVILLE — The play that likely will define Super Bowl LII has been linked to two men with Arkansas ties, including first-year Razorbacks head coach Chad Morris.
Trey Burton's fourth-and-1 touchdown pass to quarterback Nick Foles late in the second quarter of the Eagles' 41-33 win over the Patriots is being hailed "Philly Special," but a year before the Eagles pulled out the play on football's biggest stage, the Bears had run the play in the same end zone of the same stadium.
During that game - the 2016 regular season finale at Minnesota - Chicago quarterback Matt Barkley appeared to audible near the right side of the offensive line. Running back Jeremy Langford then took a direct snap and pitched the ball to receiver Cam Meredith, who was running to his right. Meredith then passed the ball to Barkley for a 2-yard touchdown.
In the Super Bowl, Foles motioned right as if to audible before running back Corey Clement took a direct snap and flipped the ball to Burton. Burton, a former quarterback at Florida, passed to Foles for the touchdown with 34 seconds left in the first half to give the Eagles a 22-12 halftime lead.
“There’s been several different variations of that play that we’ve seen people run,” Philadelphia offensive coordinator Frank Reich told the Chicago Sun Times. “We were in particular copying the Bears’ version of it.”
The Bears' version came from the playbook of Dowell Loggains, the former Arkansas quarterback who was Chicago's offensive coordinator from 2016-17 and now is coordinator for the Miami Dolphins.
Loggains called the play "Clemson Special," believed to be because of its similarity to a play the Tigers ran during a 2012 game against Georgia Tech - a two-point conversion in which quarterback Tajh Boyd motioned right and running back Andre Ellington took a direct snap before flipping the ball to receiver DeAndre Hopkins, who threw to Boyd in the end zone.
Clemson's offensive coordinator at the time was Morris. Several on Twitter noticed the similarities during the game.
"The (first) team to run it," Hopkins wrote, to which Morris replied, "Great touch on that throw!"
Added Howard University offensive coordinator Brennan Marion, "Somewhere Chad Morris is smiling... (high school) plays working in the NFL."
Arkansas ran the same play during a 2015 game against Mississippi State - a two-point conversion in which quarterback Brandon Allen motioned right, running back Alex Collins took a direct snap and receiver Jared Cornelius threw complete to Allen in the end zone. The score gave the Razorbacks a 50-44 lead in a game they would eventually lose 51-50.
During his introductory press conference at Arkansas in December, Morris, a longtime high school head coach in Texas, noted the tendency for plays from lower levels of football to be copied and eventually make their way to the NFL.
"College football used to be a trickle-down effect, to where what started in the NFL trickled down to college, which trickles down to the high school level," Morris said. "What you've seen over the last seven, eight, nine years is a trickle-up effect. There have been a lot of things, because high school coaches are so innovative...what started in high school is going to college and you're seeing some of the same things in the NFL. I think it will only continue to grow."