Great. Triple option was great at one point too.
Then Notre Dame is eliminated and either Army or Navy will go to playoffs as one of the 6 highest ranked conference champions. Neither will get an at-large bid because they won't have finished their season when bids go out. So no way to know they wouldn't lose a game that would drop them way down in the rankings.
The answer for us lies somewhere in the middle.
Well, it obviously still is. That’s the whole point of Rick’s article and this thread.
In other words, run an offense like a certain school did with a QB named Matt Corral. Wonder who his OC was.
That's why all the major colleges are running it. It's so effective that the top 5 teams are are running it.
The NFL doesn’t do it. It doesn’t sell tickets. It’s not sexy. But If the top 5 programs in America with the most NIL money wanted to run it, then they’d still kick everyone’s *** doing it every year.
In other words run an offense similar to what Mullen ran here? Lebby's offense can work potentially. I don't know enough about it yet.
I certainly don't think we should get in the wishbone or double wing and run the triple option all game long, but i never understood the argument "its a great offense to level the playing field when you don't have talent".
Just a hot take for content, since both Army and Navy are undefeated.
Great offense when you don't have talent AND have the ability to motivate players to do it. That's possible at the service academies.
So successful that Leach was the only one still running the real thing at a major level. It's time had come and gone just like the wishbone, and it never won as big as the bone did in its day. Air raid concepts will be a part of football forever,
nailed it
You are making a case on why you can't get talent running the option.
Look at who Army and Navy have played.
Talent and execution matter more than scheme. Scheme does matter, but there is no magic scheme. At the top level being one dimensional either way does not work now. That's why almost nobody runs the bone OR the pure air raid anymore.
So scheme doesn't matter as much and you talk about scheme? checks out.
Look at the caliber athletes that Army and Navy have. Same caliber or less than who’ve they played.
The D2 defending champions Harding University as well. It obviously still works, as does any niche or not so common system. Blocking and tackling have never gone out of style. And gorilla warfare works. When you’re undermanned you cannot expect to fight a gentleman’s war and expect to possibly win.
Of course we would, BECAUSE we have SEC athletes. Imagine if Army and Navy had SEC athletes. It’s ridiculous to not understand this parallel. If we had army and navy athletes we wouod not be undefeated right now playing their schedule while running our current common schemes on offense and defense.
We would be playing against SEC athletes also. Not guys that are barely one step above junior college. The SEC use to run the 17ing wishbone and other option running schemes. Do you think Saban was too dumb to run it ? Maybe he just didn't wanna win. I could continue trying to explain it to ya but I don't have enough crayons. If people that know more about football than everyone on SPS ombined don't run it there is a reason.
Army and Navy are most likely both considerably lower in pure skill/talent than their competition as a whole.
And we wouod still be playing against BETTER SEC athletes just like we do now. How that been working out for us the past couple of years running common schemes on both sides of the ball? Saban and Alabama could get whoever they wanted, so why would they resort to gorilla warfare and run an uncommon scheme? Plus kids go there wanting to go to the NFL, so Bama like all the other big schools run similar schemes to the NFL for recruiting. I may not have enough crayons, but you have only one. It’s the color “vanilla.”
The problem you don't seem to realize is that we aren't likely to get the talent, at least on offense. That's historically just how it is at MSU. We can get it on defense.
And what you can't seem to get is NO freak offense will overcome talent and execution. The air raid and the bone are opposite sides of the same coin, it's a 1982 nickel, three yards and a cloud of dust.
Except when it's one that has been figured out, like the air raid and the triple option. One dimensional doesn't work.
Then you aren't running either. You are running a hybrid which is not the original.
You can absolutely be one-dimensional......if you're throwing the ball.
Leach didn't do much here against competent defenses. If Leach's Air Raid was so great, how come no one but him still ran it? There is one truism in football that never changes. If something works, a lot of people will do it. Air raid concepts mixed with other stuff is great. The pure air raid was never THAT great. It really wasn't.
A 6-7 Oklahoma team’s athletes, at every position, are a bazillion times better than a 10-3 navy team. Not even close.
Also, it was 6-7 Oklahoma’s backups. They were down to sixth string wide receivers. They only brought 50 something players to the game and half of them were freshmen.
