Impossible to argue with success across nation; more schools would be wise to run scheme
What if I told you there is an offense as close to a sure thing as you'll find in college football?
Designed to move the ball forward every down, the scheme produces manageable third downs and long, methodical, clock-killing drives at every corner. When run properly, it is virtually impossible to stop.
Every coach in the nation would be on board, right? You'd think, but in the Football Bowl Subdivision, only four of 120 coaches are. For whatever reason, there is a notion that the triple-option offense is a gimmick — an odd, annoying scheme run by schools with inferior talent in an attempt to bog down more gifted, sophisticated opponents.
That couldn't be further from the truth. Simply put, the option is the smartest, most effective offensive system a college football team could run. This weekend was proof of that.
Georgia Tech had 604 yards on the ground — no, that's not a misprint — in its 66-24 thrashing of Kansas. Army racked up 381 yards en route to a 21-14 defeat of Northwestern. And Navy ran for 274 yards against South Carolina before falling 24-21 in a game that was decided in the final minute.
In fact, the only thing stopping one of the nation's strictly option teams this weekend was the weekend itself. Air Force rushed for zero yards as it was the Falcons' bye week.
Considering the week-in, week-out success these option teams have (Georgia Tech, Army and Navy are Nos. 1, 2 and 3 nationally in rushing, respectively; Air Force comes in at 27th but has only played two games), why don't more schools adopt the system? Prior to the Navy game, USC coach Steve Spurrier said he didn't have an answer as to why.
"You can recruit [to run the option]," Spurrier said. "Paul Johnson does it at Georgia Tech and [Ken Niumatalolo] does it at Navy very well."
The best guess here is that most coaches feel they have no reason to. If they can recruit pocket-passing quarterbacks and 300-pound offensive linemen, they can run the more common spread or pro-style sets instead. It also is safe to assume a fear of mass turnovers. Many say the first step toward running the option is coming to peace with the fact you will fumble the ball from time to time. And last, as said above, the option is thought of as the annoying kid brother of college football.
Then again, it's hard to argue with success. And while every fan base has its own wing of never-satisfied partisans (cough, USC, cough), most would have no problem winning eight or nine games every fall and going to a bowl game, even if the offense were a bit unorthodox.
Now that Johnson, who fine-tuned his option attack at Navy before taking the job at Georgia Tech, has proven success can be attained in a BCS league while running the offense, the time has come for more to jump on.
"We've been doing this for a long time," Johnson told SI.com. "There isn't anything magical about what we do. If you execute, you'll be successful. If you don't, you won't."
If you're Memphis, the FBS equivalent of the Washington Generals, why wouldn't you consider running the option? How about Washington State? The Cougars are 7-33 since 2008. Things are starting to turn around a bit in Pullman, sure, but it will be a long time before Wazzu is able to go up and down the field with Oregon and physically match Stanford and Southern Cal. The option would equalize things.
And, just for fun, let's say Ole Miss finishes 3-9 or 2-10 (check the schedule — it's very possible). And let's say the pressure gets to Houston Nutt, despite his strong recruiting classes, and he is no longer the coach in Oxford — a concept Monday's bizarre press conference with Ole Miss Athletics Director Pete Boone did little to disabuse.
The Rebels have never made an SEC Championship Game. They haven't won the league since 1963. They are rarely considered in the national elite. A gamble on going to the option would be worth it.
Marcus Lattimore said after the Gamecocks' near miss that he's glad Navy doesn't play in the SEC. Associate head coach for defense Ellis Johnson remarked that if it were up to him, he wouldn't schedule a triple-option team because it forces defense to radically change its philosophy for a week. I'd imagine those feelings would be pretty universal around the league. So, Ole Miss could throw a (highly theoretical) wrench and make eight SEC members do exactly what the Gamecocks just did every fall.
Apparently Vince Lombardi was once asked what he thought would happen if an NFL team decided to run the single-wing offense — the first popular football offense during the game's early years and the precursor to what is now called the Wildcat package. He was rather blunt, the story goes, saying, "It would embarrass the hell out of us."
If more FBS programs ran the option, they would do the same to many of their opponents. And if the right program with the right recruits in the right conference did it, there might be a national championship at the end of the road. The option is not a gimmick. It's just smart, winning football.