I've suggested this a few times over the years, but nobody seems to think it is doable. But if we could be just half-way decent with it, I think it might give us a puncher's chance against anybody. This, however was predicated on our past ability to field a very-good-to-great defense.
Run a system that has something like an Air Raid, but also have a 2nd-unit that runs a traditional triple-option. Maybe get some less highly recruited players in to run the TO, assign an assistant coach to handle that unit. For the 1's, run an option that perhaps isn't a huge transition for players on the TO 2nd unit to switch to when needed or when they show great promise.
The biggest challenge would be for O-linemen, especially if your 1's run a Leach-style AR, with wide spreads as opposed to the tight ones you'd expect from tradition TO. For the rest, it seems to me much would be transferable. For example, recall Eric Moulds thrived in the Wingbone, then had no problem transitioning to a pro-set in the NFL.
The upside is this:
We know the traditional TO can be defeated by superior athletes on defense if they have practiced it enough to have the discipline needed to maintain assignments, etc. But we also know that even schools with great defenses get a little nervous if they have just a week to prepare. Imagine how difficult that becomes if the opposing team's defense has to prepare for both. Imagine the challenge of getting your guys ready in one week to defend against both options when each requires a very different approach.
If we could be just halfway decent at both, the other team's defense would have to split time preparing for both, meaning they get less preparation for each. In that scenario, might we not then have a greater chance of nullifying their talent advantage?
Another beneift of such a system would be we'd probably not need the higher-rated recruits or the higher-rated portal players that cost so much and that force us to compete on the same level as those with much greater buying power. For those of you who keep talking about how we're doing pretty well nationally on NIL, as long as we are in the SEC our NIL wealth is absolutely relative to what we're up against in the SEC. We play games vs SEC teams every year, at least 5 of which will have MASSIVE NIL advantages.
Within our conference we'll have about 10 teams with double-to-triple our NIL budget, so even the ones we don't have to play in any given year can affect us by cherry-picking our best and buying them off. Once you get past the top 8 or so you really start to see, let's call it the "SEC Relativity Effect", where your national NIL ranking looks pretty good on paper, but when compared to the difference within the SEC, we're much closer to Western Kentucky than we are the middle-of-the-pack SEC.
To me, it seems our national NIL ranking might be good for our OOC schedule, but is anything from a slight disadvantage against 3 or 4 SEC schools to a significant disadvantage vs. 8 or 9. Well, we play just 4 OOC games in the regular season, 3 vs SEC teams that outspend us by a mile and 5 vs SEC teams that outspend us by lapping us 2-4 times!
Do the math. We are not going to see any consistent success in football in the existing system, barring an occasional blind-squirrel/nut exception no matter where we rank nationally in NIL as long as we can't come even close to what our main competition has in-conference.
So, we have to think outside-the-box and come up with ways to be competitive on the field even as we can't with NIL.
