Every offensive coordinator has a few calls in his playbook that are almost guaranteed wins in certain situations and against certain looks.

Yet getting to those plays, to a place where the winning call is appropriate, often takes some patience and a willingness to sacrifice something small for something bigger. It's part of that game within the game — where an offensive coordinator and a defensive coordinator match wits with strategy.

That happened against Ole Miss two weeks ago.

Redshirt freshman Harold Joiner has been playing a bigger role this season as a multi-purpose back. He's served as a traditional tailback, a de-facto quarterback in the Tigers' Wildcat set and as a receiver. Auburn coach Gus Malzahn (who doubles as the team's play-caller) appreciates Joiner's broad base of skills because, well, Joiner call fill several roles without the need for a substitution. And opponents know that.

The winning play in this case was Nix-to-Joiner on the wheel route. It's a play Auburn has run occasionally since Malzahn's arrival and it typically goes for a big gain. Malzahn felt that conditions were right for a wheel call during the second quarter last week, but he wasn't 100-percent sure.

So he hatched a plan: Use an unusual formation to run a dummy version of the Wheel and see how Ole Miss reacts. If the Rebels react as expected, that's valuable intel that can embolden Malzahn at some point in the future.

Here's how the dummy play looked on paper:

This is a perfectly normal counter play — back-side guard pulls around with an H-back in tow to add some beef at the point of attack. It's supposed to go wide into the boundary, but the Tigers lost a few encounters up front. The tailback 8 Shaun Shivers couldn't get wide. The play went for a modest gain.

Still, the run wasn't really about gaining yardage.

Malzahn wanted Ole Miss' defensive backs to see this machination and read it as a run. He had the wheel in mind.

Here's how the counter played out in real time — with Malzahn unloading the wheel ON THE VERY NEXT SNAP:

That worked well. Notice that almost everything about the wheel (Clip 2) was the same as the counter (Clip 1) with the exception of the H staying at home to manage back-side pressure and, obviously, the skill guys getting out into pattern rather than blocking.

It looks the same to Ole Miss safety 5 John Haynes, who steps down to attack the run without noticing that the flanker (11 Shedrick Jackson) and the first back out of the backfield (22 Joiner) aren't stalk blocking as they had before. Joiner zips by him and there's simply nobody around to fix this for Ole Miss.

The Rebels are in man coverage. The play-side cornerback stays with the outer-most (called "#1") wideout. The play-side linebacker picks up the second back coming out of the backfield. That's the "#3" threat.

Guess who had the first back (i.e. "#2")? The safety. He lost sight of his pass-coverage responsibility — just like Malzahn thought he would.

Please welcome AMY B. COTNEY as presenting sponsor for The Camera Eye. Amy is uniquely qualified to handle your real-estate needs from Lake Martin to Auburn and everywhere in between. Check her out HERE or click on her banner below to get started!