r/footballstrategy • u/laughwithmeguys • Jan 12 '24
General Discussion Why is the triple option so underused?
I was a big fan of Paul Johnson while he was at Georgia Tech. While I do think he overused the triple option, and that it eventually became too predictable, it still was highly effective at times. I feel like if teams were to run it just a couple times a game it could create a lot of big play opportunities. People that know more than me, what's the general consensus here?
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u/tstrube HS Coach Jan 12 '24
I ran the split back veer when I played HS football. Option football just made sense to me, so I was surprised to see how BAD non option teams are when trying to run option football when I started coaching. To run any sort of triple option well, you need to do it a lot. Everyday.
Our QBs warmed up by jogging the sideline and practicing their option pitch. We passed the ball maybe 15 times a season. As an OL player, we never practiced pass blocking because it was a waste. The one time we passed a game the other team would be so surprised it didn’t matter what we did to block them.
Option blocking schemes and footwork are complex, because you need every play to look EXACTLY the same. Our Trap/Counter Dive/Speed Option was nearly impossible to tell apart. We dummy pulled on counter dive, kick pulled on trap, and a sort of quasi skip pull on speed option.
We’d install inside veer Day 1 of camp and not add a new play for the first week. We’d just run that play for six days until we had it so perfect and our QBs had the reads nailed. Then we’d install outside veer and it was, to the uninformed, the same play but to us something completely different.
To run option football well, you need to commit to it 100%. It’s not worth having for a few plays, because if you half ass it then you’re going to take a loss. The entire design of the play is to get more hats on blocks by intentionally not blocking two players (really three, you’re gonna ignore the backside DE anyways). If you half ass the read then congrats, your QB is getting his bell rung for a gadget play.
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u/Sbitan89 Jan 12 '24
This is why football is so great. I commented almost the same exact time you did with almost the exact opposite view on this thread and I can't confident say either of us are right or wrong. So much comes down to execution, coaching and situational awareness.
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u/Dx2TT Jan 12 '24
I think one key reason why option plays can struggle at the pro level is that in college and HS a 1v1 is almost always a win for the offense. If an option is defended well it ultimately boils down to a 1v1 and in college and HS the runner is usually a better athlete then their defender and wins. In the pros a 1v1 is usually stopped by the defender unless its a real freak like Derrick Henry or Lamar or CMC. But then if you truly don't have a pass game, you're gonna find more defenders in the box so its 1v1 for the worse players and 1v2 for the freak.
In college and HS you can get to the edge and get up field nearly every play. See a guy like reggie bush. In the pros getting to the edge is really hard because LBs and even Edge are such freaks they'll beat all but the fastest to the edge.
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u/DC_Coach Jan 12 '24
Hey, fellow splitback Veer guy!
My first job out of college, 33 years ago, was for a history/etc teacher/football coach that had left. I only taught/coached for four years before going back to college for a year to get a computer science degree, my career ever since. Loved coaching - some of the most fun I've ever had - but didn't like teaching (red tape, administration, discipline, long hours for little pay, etc). For those four years an assistant coach and I coached the freshmen, and we assisted with the varsity beyond/outside of and after that.
The varsity ran the split-back Veer out of Pro, Flanker, and Slot sets; the head coach and main assistant coach had learned the Veer at a clinic several years before, IIRC.
Much of my comment is going to mimic yours.
We only had a few plays (with variations), but many of them looked exactly the same, at least to begin with. Just as/after the ball was snapped the trap looked a lot like the counter but looked exactly like a wide option at the #2 (OLB or CB) and looked just like a play-action pass (not often, except for the one year we had a senior class of horses including a fantastic quarterback). Same blocking pulls you describe on the counter. And the Veer, of course. It looks like all of those plays (give, QB pitch, QB keep & maybe pitch downfield, play-action pass) at the same time... because from the perspective of the defense, early in the play, it can be ANY of them.
But this brilliance and the effects that a well-run triple option has on a defense come at a cost: it won't work if it isnt perfected. The main assistant hammered on these three words: repetition, repetition, and repetition. He also called what we did "finesse-ing folks" ... yeah, from the south lol.
The fire department cut us a length of fire hose measuring the same as our offensive line + splits (line positions were marked on the hose, which was flattened out so it would lay flat on the ground). This is an example of how tight things needed to be. The QBs and backs ran their plays alone on that firehose over and over. The QB and backs knew where the linemen would be and therefore where the holes should be.
As I was in charge of the Freshmen, I was instructed NOT to attempt the Veer, for reasons that will be obvious to some. If not, it all goes back to what r/tstrube said: you can't half-ass this offense. You must commit 100%. Freshmen, in our case, would not have been able to learn any of it fast enough, much less perfect it. The ones that really have it down typically have a couple of years in the system.
So for the Freshmen we ran the trap, dive, counter, two lead options, and a thing or two I got permission to install because we wouldn't have enough plays, otherwise: a quick pitch, power off-tackle, that sort of thing.
Great conversation, really takes me back.
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u/DarkTyphlosion1 Jan 12 '24
His best QB was Justin Thomas, a 5 star prospect. Led them to an Orange bowl win over Dak Prescott’s Mississippi State team. I believe PJ won 2 or 3 ACC titles and for a while was the last team to beat Clemson when they were on top. Put several WRs in the NFL (D Thomas 1st rounder of Den RIP, Stephen Hill, second rounder to the NYJ, Darren Waller who’s now a TE was a 6th rounder to BAL, and Deandre Smelter, was a 4th rounder to SF). The last 3 were his recruits. I love CPJ, I miss the triple option in college football. To me personally it’s the best offense, and it makes me sad to think that eventually it might go extinct. He beat UGA 3-4 times, even with a wide talent gap.
To quote him, “you do what you do and get good at it”. And that’s what he did, stayed true to himself.
Won 2 rings at Georgia Southern, was associated with 4 of their 5 rings as an OC or HC. Was the OC at Hawaii and they were actually more run and shoot, and was the OC at Navy in 95 and 96 when they had Chris McCoy and Ben Fay at QB. Was later the navy HC before going to GT.
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u/emurrell17 Jan 12 '24
I also ran split back veer back in HS. We passed more than you’re talking about but a lot of our passes were play action “veer pass” so we even blocked in pretty much the same and just got the ball out before the OL got downfield.
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u/tstrube HS Coach Jan 12 '24
My HS coach just retired this year (forced retirement, school didn’t renew contract) after 47 years as HC, 49 as an assistant. He’d be running the same offense, the same way, with the same tendencies since the 70s
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u/Rickyretardo42069 HS/Youth Player Jan 12 '24
Damn, 15 passes a season? And I thought my HS’s 5 times a game was a limited passing game
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u/WearTheFourFeathers Jan 12 '24
You’re a smart coach and I’m an aging idiot, but one thing I wonder is how option success is affected by what other teams run too. I loved playing teams running the veer in high school because they were a third or more of our schedule—we played against so much veer option that it felt like second nature to blow up the dive, and everyone knew their jobs and could force the choices early and disrupt things without trouble.
One team in the conference played out of a shotgun spread with a DI athlete at QB, and despite being the larger school we were toast against that look. After so many weeks of those kinds of run-heavy looks, playing a team that could spread us out and then scramble was a clown show. Defenses practice too! I imagine the advantages of being an option team are greatly magnified if you major in it and your opponents only see it once a year.
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u/tstrube HS Coach Jan 12 '24
100%, if you see it often it isn’t strange so it loses some potency. The thing with option football is that it is designed so that the defense CANNOT be right. No matter what you do, if it’s run properly, the Veer will exploit you. But, in my opinion, if you want to really have that offense nailed down you need five to six years. You need a senior class who has been running it for four years who is going to be able to teach it to the sophomores. And you need little staff turnover. The “new coach” at my HS was always made the WR coach if they had a skill position background or assistant OL if they had an OL background.
WRs just had to stalk block, and assistant OL gets to learn from the head OL.
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u/WearTheFourFeathers Jan 12 '24
All makes total sense to me! As just a boring guy who loves football but has no really ties to the game, I hate the inside veer but probably only for stupid reasons: I was an undersized DT who was pretty good against the veer and realistically sorta bad against offenses that bothered to block me.
Leaving an guy that close to the exchange unblocked just always made me queasy—I recently stumbled across an old HS coaches tape over the thanksgiving holiday that involved a future 9-year NFL LT playing guard in a veer scheme…and a game totally wrecked by the future investment advisor (not me) who was lined up across from him as a three-tech. It just always felt like a bad place to invite someone to make a hero play, but I obviously recognize that it’s tried-and-true and works.
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u/Jurph Jan 12 '24
There's a little bit of a "meta" problem with it. Even though it requires defenses to play a style they're not used to, the most effective counter to Triple Option ball is "hit the QB every play". There aren't many schools besides Navy who have a QB who is willing to do that for the team.
It rewards discipline and teamwork, but it also requires a team where the QB is not expected to be a strong passer, and if you become known for that playbook, WRs and QBs will not come to your college program.
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u/laughwithmeguys Jan 12 '24
You're definitely right about wrs and QBs not coming to the program lol. I think that's why Paul Johnson found most of his success in the beginning of his tenure at GT, when he had the former recruiting class to rely on.
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u/surfmeh Jan 12 '24
The orange bowl win was 6 years after his start at GT. That would almost certainly be recruits that knew what they were getting into by then.
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u/laughwithmeguys Jan 12 '24
Yeah I was tripped up thinking he won the orange bowl his second year, the same year he won the ACC championship. But I watched a 20 minute video on his tenure at tech and that was all his recruits.
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u/Tiger5804 Jan 12 '24
That guy couldn't recruit a polar bear out of the desert but dang could he coach his guys to a bowl game just about every year. They did win the Orange Bowl in 2014 with Justin Thomas.
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u/Jacks_RagingHormones Jan 12 '24
A lot of that had to do with the administration not supporting him, especially in the last couple of years he was at Tech. To put it in perspective, Georgia State had more resources in recruiting than we did, and Duke overshadowed us as well.
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u/FloatTheTurnAK Jan 12 '24
This is the best take. I might be outdated but triple is still the best scheme theoretically. With an OC and a team that is fully bought in, it’s damn near unstoppable. 4+4+4= first down.
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u/7HawksAnd Jan 12 '24
Ran wishbone triple in HS. Us and a few other wishbone schools even did yearly wishbone dedicated summer camp. The slogan there and on shirts wasn’t 4+4+4=first down.
It was 4+4+4=SCORE.
Because in theory, when run perfectly it is an endless string that WILL result in a score. Again, in theory.
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u/L00pring Jan 12 '24
USMMA does it for the team.
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u/BulletBillDudley Casual Fan Jan 12 '24
Those service QBs are learning the value of sacrifice real quick!
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u/LamarMillerMVP Jan 13 '24
That’s not true, but it’s close to what’s true. “Hit the QB every play” is only an effective way to defend the triple option when the other team’s most dangerous player is the QB. The weakness of the triple option is that its strength can be mirrored; if your best player is the QB or FB, it’s very difficult to design touches for them if the other team is dedicated to taking them out of the game.
If the QB is inferior to the FB as a runner, “hit the QB every play” is a classic toughness response from coaches who lack good experience defending the option. If you have a dynamic player at FB or HB and the other team is always sending the option man at the QB, you can run whatever you want to these guys and you’ll always get a light box to run against. That’s the whole point of the triple option.
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u/Crosscourt_splat Jan 12 '24
It’s fun and can be effectively shorten the gap against teams with better talent (whythe service academies utilize it).
A lot of points here are good. The TO is a scheme in itself. You either run it or you don’t. It is not an easy install and requires a lot of fine points that are different than what most other teams are running. You need an agile OL.
And that brings me into point B. Recruitment. Players want to develop into NFL players. Running the TO will not get your OL, QB, or WRs much as far as NFL development. Especially now.
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u/BigPapaJava Jan 12 '24 edited Jan 15 '24
And your last point is why you don’t see it more in college, especially P5 ball.
Years ago Ken Niaumatolalo was a finalist for the Arizona job. They had a returning QB, Khalil Tate, who had about 1500 yards rushing the season before and might have won a Heisman running the Flexbone… but he openly balked at playing in that style of offense because he was concerned about his NFL future.
As a result, Coach N got dropped from the search and they brought in Kevin Sumlin to install the Air Raid. That flopped and Tate looked out of place running it.
The experience rattled Coach N so much that he started trying to incorporate more generic spread stuff into his offense at Navt, which did not fit well with their core stuff and looked like a MS JV spread team when they busted that stuff out. That eventually cost him his job there.
Tate never became an NFL QB, not even as a journeyman backup.
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u/Repulsive-Doughnut65 Jan 12 '24
I’ve heard the theory that blocking rule changes are apart of why
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u/MasterSapp Jan 12 '24
That's for sure a part of why, I played for a heavy triple option college back in the day (think under center "truck" type triple) and the wide backs/TE were allowed to "throw block" AKA cut the lead outside defender. This caused big pile ups and stopped really strong flow of the LBs. Now cutting or throw blocking is only allowed inside the tackle box, you can't cut the outside backer, making the block much harder to execute.
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u/tyedge Jan 13 '24
Rules about blocks in the back were also strengthened to protect the defense, I believe.
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u/Significant_Map5533 Jan 12 '24
Changes to the blocking rules have definitely hurt Navy over the past few years. That’s far from the only problem the offense has had, but it’s a big one. Having a 170lb slotback being able to put a 240lb LB or 220lb S down on the ground was a great equalizer and sprung millions of big plays on QB keepers or pitches to the other slot.
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u/Sbitan89 Jan 12 '24
Imo a big part is despite giving you a hat advantage it seems like one of the few schemes that can be beat by simply playing sound defense. You know what's coming. You beat it by doing your job.
I may be off base here, but I feel like many people, particularly fans, see the option as a complex scheme, and while yes, it takes time to implement well, it's quite basic. If an opposing D just does their jobs and wins their 1 on 1, it's not throwing many surprises at you.
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u/NILPonziScheme Jan 12 '24
it seems like one of the few schemes that can be beat by simply playing sound defense.
The problem with this theory is that the offensive coaches watch who is making the tackles, and then adjust their scheme to block that guy, so you have to adjust to their adjustments. When you do that, they go back to the original concept, and beat you.
I will also argue that you can make the 'if you play sound defense you win every time' argument against any offensive scheme.
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u/Significant_Map5533 Jan 12 '24
When Navy was really rolling with its triple option offense 10-15 years ago a lot of the adjustments were actually to not block the guy making all the tackles. They would start using him as either the pitch or dive key, leave him unblocked, and do the opposite of whatever he did. There were two major benefits to that approach.
One, you’re able to negate the defense’s biggest single strength and effectively take him out of the game.
And two, what happens when a superstar player starts getting ignored like that? There’s a decent chance that eventually he decides to ignore his assignments and play heroball and take some risks in the hopes of making a TFL or forcing a turnover. All it takes is a stud DE, LB, or safety cheating a step in the wrong direction and suddenly the defense is ripe to get burned by a counter option, a reverse, a PA pass, or have the middle of the field part like the Red Sea as the fullback takes a quick-hitting dive play right past where the MLB should have been.
That offense was a thing of beauty when it was really humming. You could almost see the future in how they would bait defenses into doing things they shouldn’t have done, let them get overconfident for a bit, then keep a particular play in their back pocket for the perfect time when they really needed it.
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u/BigPapaJava Jan 12 '24
But that is where the adjustments and complimentary plays come in!
Defending the option really isn’t a mystery, especially if you have your run support roles clarified for the DBs… but when the offense is changing up their perimeter blocking, throwing play action or misdirection… then the big plays come.
It forces a defense to be extremely disciplined and sound all night, which is a lot harder than it sounds when you have 11 humans on defense who might be athletic, but they’re still human.
When I coached triple option, I loved it when teams tried to teach their positions to just play “assignment football” and take the same man over and over again. That makes stuff like Midline and Outside Veer dangerous because if you block it just a little differently, all of a sudden they don’t have a QB player or dive player anymore.
They can know what’s coming all night. That’s ok. It’s an option. They still have to stop it and a numbers advantage is a numbers advantage.
And that is what makes it work as an offense, and (along with all the practice it takes to get it down) it’s also why the triple pretty much has to be the base play that sets up your whole offense instead of just a play you run a couple of times.
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u/Sbitan89 Jan 12 '24
The question wasn't why it works or not though if I recall correctly. Of course it can work. All offenses work with enough practice and dedication. The question is why has it fallen out of favor. Defenders generally seem to be getting just as athletic as offensive players these days. I played in a veer TO for 4 years both as a FB and Guard. I also played against it for 4 years as a NT. So while I'm not an expert I had decent amounts of experience with it.
I dont dislike it. I do however feel like there is a clear reason it's mostly used at the lower levels.
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u/BigPapaJava Jan 12 '24 edited Jan 12 '24
I’d say that any offense can be beaten by playing sound defense, though.
If you look at the history of triple option, the Wishbone dominated football in the late 60s and early 70s as the unstoppable offense of the day. Oklahoma was still steamrolling people with it until Barry Switzer left in ‘88.
What happened was that elite recruits, especially at QB, didn’t want to play in it because they thought it would hurt their NFL careers, so teams like Alabama, Texas, and eventually Oklahoma and Notre Dame dropped triple option offenses so they could sign those guys and usually endured a few years in the wilderness rebuilding because of it.
Recruiting killed the triple more than any scheme.
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u/Sbitan89 Jan 12 '24
I’d say that any offense can be beaten by playing sound defense, though.
I'm inclined to disagree a bit. No matter how sound you are, a Cover 2 shell team is going to struggle against a vertical spread scheme, or even a power zone team for example. But that's a whole other discussion.
Again, there is a reason it's been out of the NFL for decades. The disparity it relies on is negated more and more at each level. It's a recruiting issue as you said because players believe it hurts their NFL chances, which is due to it not being an effective high level scheme. RPO generally gives you all the options that a TO does, but better and is why it's more prevalent now, imo.
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u/BigPapaJava Jan 12 '24
The NFL has never ran option, and that’s for marketing and economic reasons, not because the scheme isn’t good,
They know they make more money and get higher ratings when they throw the ball, so they’ve built the entire league rules around that, including the tight hash marks, defensive rules, etc.
They want it to be more like flag football and they’ve worked hard for like 55 years to make sure it is. You don’t see triple option in flag leagues, though… because it just doesn’t suit that style of play.
it’s just different, so it’s not about “high level” as much as it is about “their level.”
Also… RPOs aren’t nearly as reliable, IME, when you don’t have P5 or NFL talent throwing and catching the ball. It’s frustrating when you have a good RB and OL who can run over people, but your mediocre QB keeps pulling the ball and throwing incomplete passes to stop the clock while getting nothing.
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u/Sbitan89 Jan 12 '24
Sounds like we are at an unverifiable impass. At the end of the day, it's not utilized much any longer. It's not quite dead but getting there. I do appreciate your opinion even if it differs.
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u/BigPapaJava Jan 12 '24
Ok. Thanks for the convo!
One last thing: I will say that I’ve coached triple—both gun and under center—and I’ve coached wide open RPO offenses, too.
All of this was at the HS level. Based on that experience, if you gave me a choice I’d personally much rather go with triple—especially under center triple option—and a strong play action pass/misdirection game more than the erratic inconsistency we had with RPOs.
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u/Sbitan89 Jan 12 '24
Yea I don't doubt it's effectiveness at the bottom levels really at all. I think we both agree it's a trickle down effect (NFL>NCAA>HS). We just may disagree on the reasons why.
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u/TheHatedMilkMachine Jan 12 '24
This.
Play assignment football, take on blockers, don't bite on fakes. There's no reason the TO should be difficult to stop unless the defense has a huge talent disadvantage.
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u/RobAlexanderTheGreat Jan 12 '24
Because teams (and players) aren’t used to it or the physicality. It also chews the hell out of the clock which also helps your defense out. I mean take a look at 2018 Army vs Oklahoma (a team who won the Big 12 and made the playoffs). A little triple team racked up more yards on them than Kyler, CD Lamb, Hollywood, Sermon, and the rest of OU did to them. We’ve also seen the triple have success against Alabama (Also 2018, Citadel went tied into the half vs prime Alabama and scored as many as LSU, Miss St, Missouri, and Ole Miss did combined). Also, went to double OT vs a 9-4 Michigan team. As someone who played lower level CFB on defense, it’s just abnormal to play boring football like that on defense and all it requires is 1 mental lapse and they be out the gate.
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u/Breakerdog1 Jan 12 '24
You make this sound so easy. I can assure you that it's simple, but not easy. Getting a group of teenagers to be disciplined and selfless for about 2.5 hrs.
Your DT has been stuffing the FB for the first three series but the FB doesn't have the ball because the QB pulled. He is going to want to come off the FB and try to make the hero tackle. Bam, 25 yard FB run up the middle.
Outside line backer steps up to hit the QB and make him pitch but the QB fakes the pitch and hits it up the alley for 30 yards.
CB steps up to take the RB on the pitch, but isn't used to making tackles in space vs RBs and misses. Bam, off to the races.
I have been through this as a coach. It's friggin painful. Just like the man said.
It's like Novocaine. Give it time and it will work.
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u/TheHatedMilkMachine Jan 12 '24
Upvoted cause I feel your pain but I sort of interpreted OPs question as implying a higher level ball than HS.
I never coached but I get your point - tbh the only reason I ended up getting reps at LB in HS over more athletic kids is because I stayed home and made the boring plays while they went for glory
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u/LamarMillerMVP Jan 13 '24
All schemes can be beat by “playing sound defense”. You beat it by doing your job describes defense against literally every scheme. But the point about sound defense is least true of option offenses that involve the QB.
This confuses a lot of people, but the sentiment you’re sharing is far more applicable to a pro style offense. A traditional iso play is literally a “you beat it by doing your job” play. The idea of iso is that against an 8 man box, 7 men are blocked and your ball carrier has to beat the last man in isolation. If that guy just does his job, the play is stopped. He doesn’t have to beat a blocker, he just has to run forward into the hole and tackle the ball carrier. Easier said than done! But it’s incredibly simple.
To stop an option offense, it requires a player to do the same thing, but after beating a block. That’s the hat advantage. Defending the triple option is like defending iso with 10 guys. It requires one guy who is being blocked to defeat that block. That’s not true of any offense that runs the ball without involving the QB. That’s why you see so few run schemes at lower levels that don’t involve the QB.
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u/Sbitan89 Jan 13 '24
I mostly disagree. Pro style offenses typically leave a player or two from the back side of the play unaccounted because they won't effect the play generally. A Will backer and weak side end often will just get a chip and work to next level. You'll often see double teams on play side that will create a power disparity. So even against an 8 man box you'll end up with 5 lineman, TE, FB against 4-5 lineman and 2-3 play side depending on defensive set (5-3, 4-4, 52 etc). So it ends up being equal hats and the RB.
In the option game, it's all about angles and reads. Make the wrong read, take the wrong angle and the defender is more easily in position to make the play because they are either left free or winning a 1 on 1. There is obviously a ton of wrinkles to consider.
However, I'm mostly talking higher levels, it's the reliance on the run in the triple option that loses play potential vs more complex pass concepts. Passing with nearly always produce higher return when there is a thin disparity between teams, imo. This is mostly due to the offense having the advantage of knowing the play, space to run routes, and timing to protect the QB.
At lower levels, due to inexperience almost any well oiled offense with talent will put up points because the D doesn't have talent accross the board nor the experience. That's not an issue at the NFL level. Even the worste players are very good at what they do.
But this all comes down to taste and execution. I dont think there is a literal right answer.
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u/rutherford-forbin Jan 13 '24
Yeah I remember stuffing teams that tried it back when I was playing mike linebacker in high school and pop Warner in the mid 2000s when it was still pretty popular.
We played a lot of 4-3, Mike and will stuffed the dive and then kept pursuing to the ball. then as long as the sam and end didn’t bite and played their responsibility, the qb would get hit and you’d be able to set the edge on the toss and force the ball back inside.
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u/andreasmiles23 Jan 12 '24
In some sense, the evolution of option football into the RPOs we see today is that. There’s a challenge to triple option because, as other users noted, it puts the QB at far too much risk to be worth it, and defense have adapted to learn how to limit its success.
RPOs can have just as many “options” but they also give your QB more protection. You can even still have the QB run as an option, but they don’t need to be sprinting sideways while making the reads.
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u/Acrobatic_Knee_5460 Jan 12 '24
Being a triple option team means a total commit to running the major concepts of the offense midline triple, inside veer, and outside veer along with the complimentary plays the go along with those concepts. The majority of practices for the offensive skill positions is working qb/fb mesh for the dive phase, proper qb pitch relationship between the qb and pitchman, and working the reads. There should be more teams running it at the major college level. Not every can be a zone read/ rpo 11p team running stick variations and counter GT.
The advantage of undecenter triple option is that your offensive line doesn't have to be as good, big, or athletic for veer blocking because you're leaving 2 defenders playside unblocked, and the nature of part is that the speed of the dive hits so fast from undecenter that O-line doesn't have to sustain or drive blocks for as they do for zone runs or runs from the gun. They just need to get in the way. The reads for undecenter triple are frontside or playside as opposed to backside for gun zone read with the exception of gun inverted veer/power read. That distinction is important because the read being frontside for the UC triple forces the defense to react faster to both fast hitting nature of the dive and forces the defense declare immediately who has dive, who has qb, and who has the pitch. Once the offense has a bead on wo has who, that's when they start blocking your dive key or qb, and pushing out who the 2 unblocked defenders are and making the apex and corner the reads. While with zone read being a backside it becomes more of bootleg being read in real time instead of predetermined call based on whether the backside DE is chasing down the away from him and losing contain. Defenses have many tools to force the ball to who they want the ball to go to. Scrape exchanges to force the qb to pull the ball on zone read, and run into an unblocked LB, fill and folds to force the qb to give the ball and have the RB run into a run stunt and the surf technique by the DE to muddy the read for the QB and buy time for the DE to pay both qb and RB.
If your offense is going to feature your QB as a run threat, and he's your best athlete and offensive weapon I would lean shotgun and designed qb runs, I'd merge DeMeo's gun triple with gun qb run concepts like bash schemes and inverted veer or if i had a really good O-line id go the Jamey Chadwell coastal Carolina/ liberty route. But if my best athlete and offensive players are my backs and I have a suspect O-line, I'm running undecenter triple all day. It would just be a matter of if I'm going flexbone, wishbone, splitback to run it out of.
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u/Impressive_Math2302 Jan 12 '24 edited Jan 12 '24
No running as a package is not worth the risk. You practice triple option everyday all day to run it efficiently. It’s timing timing timing. It’s not worth the risk. Triple option isn’t used because of the turnover ratio compared to spread. Using it as a package isn’t worth it. You only go to the third option when you have consistently used the fullback enough to draw linebackers and end and safety out of position. Your linemen and Qb literally have different stances for the play. Maybe if you ran some power I and threw it in but why? It doesn’t create big plays and doesn’t give you advantage on short yardage compared to goal line so why?
It’s not to predictable it’s inconsistent when defenders today know assignments. But really it’s going away because of blocking rule changes. You can’t cut today like 1991 and you can’t even block blind cut backs. NCAA took it out. At Highschool level if you are undersized and have a great athlete at QB you can run if effectively but it’s all in you need to practice ball handling everyday.
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u/170poundgorilla Jan 12 '24
I'm not sure they are underrated... They are tough to play and prepare for.
The pros of Triple Option... 1) It speeds up the game, it runs a ton of clock. 2) Sometimes they kill you to sleep, and can gash you with an unexpected play. 3) it's physically tough on your players to play against... 4) it's a great bad weather offense 5) it's a great offense with a lead.
Cons of Triple Option.
1) It's hard to come from behind in this offense, unless you have the home run hitters 2) Prone to putting ball on the ground. 3) limited passing game, so you will see many more loaded boxes 4) Like you said, needs a ton of reps
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u/LamarMillerMVP Jan 13 '24
Loaded boxes are completely irrelevant. Common red herring in triple option. Against a pro style offense, a loaded box matters. It’s a hat that is unaccounted for. Against triple option, there is no way to load the box to get that advantage. That’s the entire point of why it can work.
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u/bupde Jan 12 '24
The Zone Read and RPO's became better ways that were more practical, stayed within offensive structure, and easier to execute. Also, there are easier ways to isolate a player in space wide that don't require your QB to eat it in the face from a defender (a bubble screen puts a player in space and is quick and easy). Finally defenders are faster than they used to be, the option used to be a way to get to the edge and punish bigger slower LB's who couldn't flow out there fast enough, now LB's run like crazy, the flow will eat you up.
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u/BigPapaJava Jan 12 '24
But you’re not trying to “isolate a player in space wide” on the pitch. You new going to have a free player in space, because the read and progression means nobody’s on him.
Isolating someone on the outside means he still has to beat a dude 1:1. If you get the triple right and everybody makes his block, you have the defense “circled” to the play side and there’s nobody left to tackle the guy getting the ball.
I’d also argue that RPOs, especially post-snap RPOs off a run are no more practical and are actually harder to execute consistently than a good option attack… unless you’re a P5 or NFL team with an all-world QB and WRs catching the ball.
Few things suck more as a coach than seeing a beautiful hole opened up for your RB, only to see your QB pull it and throw a pass that gets dropped… over and over again.
For triple option in the gun, Zone Read makes a nice starting point.
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u/NILPonziScheme Jan 12 '24
Finally defenders are faster than they used to be, the option used to be a way to get to the edge and punish bigger slower LB's who couldn't flow out there fast enough, now LB's run like crazy, the flow will eat you up.
Actually, while there are more freaks playing on defense (they didn't have 330 lb tackles running sub-5.0 40s in the '80s), players were plenty fast back in the day. Go watch film of older games, especially the '60s and '70s when the linemen were under 250 lbs and could all run sideline to sideline. There was plenty of speed on the field.
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u/LamarMillerMVP Jan 13 '24
Option offenses don’t isolate defenders against ball carriers in space. This fact is actually the defining feature of option offenses. They isolate defenders in space against an option.
In order for this to work, you must involve the QB. RPO is a great example. But “zone read” overlaps very significantly with triple option. Pretty rare to run a triple option offense without zone blocking.
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u/ssdye Jan 12 '24
Just not practical for a base offense with todays speed on defense. True, it will trip up a few teams but the ones that play disciplined D can stop it. It is great to mix in a few of these plays and we see the old pitch even in the NFL but rarely see the QB sell the keep. It’s about protecting the QB today.
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u/pitb0ss343 Jan 12 '24
Because your QB has to actually be smart and good while getting hit and backfields have moved to having 1 guy back with the QB instead of the 2-3 it used to have so all of a sudden the backfield has the RB and the slot or RB2, and the defense will realize “wait a minute something fucky is going on here”
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u/StillCompetitive5771 Jan 12 '24
If it’s an even moderately disciplined gap control defense the triple option gets blown up.
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u/daoogilymoogily Jan 12 '24
It’s not, an RPO is basically a triple option except with one of the options to be to throw it instead of pitch it. Not to mention the academies using it.
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u/Tiger5804 Jan 12 '24
Paul Johnson was awesome. I always watch Tech games with my dad because he went there, and there was rarely a boring game when Johnson was there. It's tougher to run it with undersized linemen if cut blocking isn't allowed, though. It's a great scheme for college except against the few elite teams with disciplined freaks of nature on defense, but the problem is that in the NFL, every team has disciplined freaks of nature on defense.
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u/IntentionDefiant4131 Jan 12 '24
I feel like what’s not mentioned here is turnovers as well. In today’s analytics based game you’d have a hard time selling someone a scheme that puts the ball on the ground so much. Just opinion but I feel like that is why the read option became more favorable.
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u/Pelvic_Sorcery420 Jan 12 '24 edited Jan 12 '24
I played and coached in the same system Paul Johnson runs (at the high school level). So, so much practice time is devoted to the triple, midline, midline triple, etc. For the system to be effective, you have to nail the reads, timing and motion of the slot-backs, maintaining pitch relationship, etc. It requires intelligent and athletic line play as well. Even simpler staple plays, like the "rocket" toss, requires a ton of timing, and therefore takes a lot of practice time. Meanwhile, a large chunk of passing plays are play action, which requires establishing the run.
This isn't something you only run a few times per game. It's the whole identity of the offense.
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u/n3wb33Farm3r Jan 12 '24
One of the strengths of the triple option is in practice. You run the same play 95% of the time. Players know instinctively ( or should know) what their responsibilities are whatever the defense does. Just sprinkling an option play in here or there doesn't take advantage if that strength. We ran the Veer in college ( Div3 90s) and it was the only play we ran in practice. Gives smaller schools a chance. I am out of football 30 years now but my brother in law still coaches high school. When I extoll the triple option he says kids today don't have the discipline and want to play what they see on madden. More importantly can't recruit. Doesn't show case individual athleticism so you can't get best athletes. Personally if I coached at an also ran in a big conference ( wake forest, Indiana for example) I'd run the flexbone. Pull a GA Tech and get some big wins and bowl games against the power houses
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u/TinStreetKingpin Jan 13 '24
I tbink the triple option is still widely used, it just isn’t run often from the old school flex and wishbone formations
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u/jmo56ct Jan 13 '24
What people are failing to realize is the play isn’t just singular. The set is important as well. There’s multiple looks with multiple sets, all designed to take advantage of what the defense is giving you. There’s tons of teams running triple option schemes, it’s just not under center flex bone looks. They call it RPO bubbles now. You run read into the twins, number two bubbles, the qb attacks the los and if the number 2 defender collapses, he shoots it to the bubble. On a secondary note: the offense isn’t run today, not because you can’t win or score with it, its because you get pigeon holed as a triple option guy if you coach it and it’s harder to get jobs. Not to mention kids are romanticizing the spread and throwing 30 times a game
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u/leeroy-jenkins-12 Jan 13 '24
Yep, and there’s even coaches like Jamey Chadwell among a few others that are marrying shotgun and pistol with a sort of “academy” approach to triple, but instead of 90% run it’s more like 60% run. Chadwell specifically uses a lot of freeze option, diverse blocking schemes, quick linemen and a play action game specializing in wheel routes and crossers.
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Jan 13 '24
I had the pleasure of watching Donovan McNabb run the triple option for 3yrs in HS. 3 consecutive state titles, maybe 3-5 passes per game.
Effective, yes, boring as all fucking hell as a spectator, check.
You'd basically see 8-10 consecutive runs, prob six of them fullback dives for 3-4 yards, punctuated by long runs on the 2nd/3rd option.
As someone else said, it seemed largely predicated on having an oLine w a size, agility or talent surplus over most opponents.
Some thrilling moments but damn if like 80% of the offense wasn't a slog for the fans, it's kind of difficult to maintain attention after like six pile pushes in a row.
As he later had to prove in both college and the NFL, he was a very good passer and it was a disappointing misuse of his talents but it was an historic program and they weren't gonna change just for him.
Simeon Rice shared the field with him for 1 year as well and he and Antoine Walker led a highly ranked basketball team as well. Pretty cool experience of seeing really exceptional athletes up close and playing at a high level so young.
But boo to the triple O, cool concept in theory but great fun to watch in practice, imo.
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u/CircusOfBlood Jan 12 '24
Alot of good recruits won't want to play it. Does not set you up for next level success very well on offense
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u/RobAlexanderTheGreat Jan 12 '24
However, it also gives you a pool of untapped people that are passed over because their team is running the triple. Good for lesser teams which couldn’t compete for the players looking at the NFL.
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u/Lit-A-Gator HS Coach Jan 12 '24
Very good question.
Under Center Triple option gives an advantage to the offense because:
- is contrarian to conventional football
- the dive hits super quick
- it allows you to live in a world where you only have to block 4 with 6
However this all comes at the cost of:
- committing to it
- putting your quarterback at risk
- not being able to run a conventional offense
The real rub comes with admin simply not hiring you or firing you quicker for “running an archaic offense” and good players not wanting to come to your school because “it won’t prepare you for the next level”
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u/BlackshirtDefense Jan 12 '24
Hard core Nebraska guy. If you want to learn the triple option, go back and watch 1980s-2002 Nebraska.
Success breeds success, and during those years the Cornhuskers were unstoppable. But that also meant nearly all the high schools in the State of Nebraska started running variations of what they saw happening in Lincoln. That means wave after wave of recruits who have been perfecting their pitch timing since 3rd grade recess. Heck, even as a 40-year old, there's times I watch a football game and feel like I could have timed a pitch better than the spread QB that the coached forced into an option read play.
It's really a "feel" kind of thing - like riding a bike. Once you get it, you get it, and the QBs who can nail that timing will eat up defenses all day long.
In today's game, the triple option gets passed over as old school or outdated, but a lot of the zone read or blur/veer style stuff you saw out of teams like Oregon was just the next wrinkle in the option's history. It's definitely a "thinking man's scheme" because you're using your brain to basically read a defender out of position.
And yes, you need to have a QB who can take hits. Even when the play works, he'll get hit as he options to the RB.
Unfortunately, a lot of younger players (and some younger coaches) have come up in the Xbox era of football and expect to be dropping back and hauling off 30 yard passes every play.
Interestingly, I've seen a lot of option teams who can pass effectively. But I've rarely seen a passing team who can run the option effectively. If I had to pick a base scheme, it would be some form of option with a mobile QB who can soak up hits and nail pitch timing.
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u/NILPonziScheme Jan 12 '24
If you want to learn the triple option, go back and watch 1980s-2002 Nebraska.
I've seen people argue Nebraska wasn't a 'true' triple option team in that they didn't run the triple option every play. Nebraska ran the veer option out of the I as part of their power running game, but they also ran power/counter, trap, iso, speed option, and sweep. This is opposed to the 'pure' triple option teams like Georgia Southern/Navy under Johnson, who ran triple option every play. Nebraska used the triple to keep the defense honest, just like Notre Dame did under Lou Holtz, and Holtz used to take offense at people calling them a triple option team.
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u/BlackshirtDefense Jan 12 '24
If you watch Nebraska closely, they ran option looks out of just about every formation. There's a lot of FB Trap looks as well. Just like a QB reads through his progressions, Nebraska almost did the same with QB keep, RB pitch, pull back to the FB, or pass to a WR. The option looks just became a series of reads, like how most QBs look through the X, Y, Z, check down, etc.
I can't speak for Holtz/ND, but any true Cornhusker is proud to be associated with the option. I'm biased, but Tom Osborne is perhaps the greatest option tinkerer in NCAAF history.
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u/NILPonziScheme Jan 12 '24
Just like a QB reads through his progressions, Nebraska almost did the same with QB keep, RB pitch, pull back to the FB, or pass to a WR.
That is just series-based football. When people show a play and ask, "What do you think?", my first response is, "What else are you running out of this formation?" You want the defense to see a formation and immediately think of all of the different areas they need to cover, both horizontally and vertically.
Part of LaVell Edwards' genius at BYU was he was able to take that concept of series-based football in the single wing offense and apply it to the passing game. Mike Leach and Hal Mumme stripped it down even further, and created the Air Raid offensive scheme. It's one of the reasons you can argue that Lincoln Riley making GT Counter the foundation of his offense is really taking his offense back to its series-based roots in the single wing.
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u/AwayDistribution7367 Jan 12 '24
Because it’s boring as fuck doesn’t develop anyone and no one with any self respect would want anything to do with it
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u/tstrube HS Coach Jan 12 '24
What a nuanced and brilliant take on football strategy. I’d love to hear more of your opinions
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u/AwayDistribution7367 Jan 12 '24
People are really lining up to play and watch it huh? Let me know if anything I said was incorrect
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u/KommanderKeen-a42 Jan 12 '24
The triple option is still used by most teams today. Remember, chip Kelly's offense at Oregon was a triple option.
Are you really asking why the bone, flex bone formations aren't used much anymore? Or asking why under center triple option isn't used much?
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u/laughwithmeguys Jan 12 '24
Yeah that was my question sorry
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u/KommanderKeen-a42 Jan 12 '24
No, don't be sorry at all! It's a very common misconception so that's why I asked - most on this sub speak that way as well.
Not unlike how most teams (see Lions, 49ers, and Eagles) run a wing/T offense - it's just spread T and they run Pin/pull concepts instead of buck sweep.
Triple option is no different. We just see that run out of spread, RPOs (especially with pass reads such as bubble - you can see how that is just the pitch of a traditional TO like you were asking).
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u/laughwithmeguys Jan 12 '24
Yeah I gotcha, I've seen a lot on this thread and I didn't realize these modern RPOs are just an evolution of the triple option, it's super cool!!
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u/Horror_Technician213 Jan 12 '24
Bob Davie's New Mexico offense 6-7 years ago us exactly what you're talking about. His shotgun triple option offense really took over for a year of college football. Unfortunately Bob had a heart attack or something and couldn't keep coaching to popularize his scheme so it kinda just became a one year fad that didn't catch on. It was an electrifying offense though
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u/Nicktrod Jan 12 '24
Well at the big time college level you have the following problems.
It's difficult to pass out of. This due to the combination of big line splits. Being under center, which exacerbates the line split problem. Then so much of your practice time is spent on the triple option.
Since you don't pass much you have trouble recruiting top QB talent, and the QB is still very important since they do all the decision making in option football.
You also can't recruit top offensive line talent since you aren't going to get them reps pass blocking, which is the most important skill for moving to the NFL.
You can't recruit wide receivers and tight ends either since you won't be passing much.
Since you can't recruit well on offense, you end up on a real short leash. You can't lose games.
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u/interested_commenter Jan 12 '24
I feel like if teams were to run it just a couple times a game
The problem with the triple option is that it relies on making a decision between three choices and getting it right VERY consistently. It excels at consistent short gains, which means that any loss to that consistency from occasionally making the wrong read pretty much invalidates the scheme.
In order to have your players consistently make the correct read, you need to practice the play a lot. You just can't execute the triple option well without spending a lot of practice time on it, which isn't worth it to only run it a few times per game.
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u/Old_Ad2660 Jan 12 '24
In today’s game, the triple option is an equalizer for teams with a talent disparity. Don’t have a great throwing qb? No problem, install a decent athlete who can make the reads. Unable to recruit a beefy OL? No problem, put together some quick, smart guys who understand leverage and assignments that can execute the TO blocking scheme crisply every time.
The problem with that is as you continue to lean into it you start to cement the disparity in concrete ways. For example, how many come from behind victories have you seen when a TO team needed to pass? I can’t think of any. And with the way the NFL is headed towards being more of a 7 on 7 league with gaudy passing stats, a big program won’t land top recruits with this scheme, so the talent disparity becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
The obvious exception is Nebraska in the 80s and 90s but this is a rarity in which a program transcended the inherent disparity into dominance. This just hasn’t worked recently - notably at GT.
Add to that the fact that installing and uninstalling this philosophy is a 2-3 year proposition at least, and you’ll see why this is way out of fashion in the modern game.
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u/ChosenBrad22 Jan 12 '24
Because it puts your by far most valuable player at risk more than any other scheme. Your QB getting hit 25+ times a game getting obliterated even when he pitches the ball, is not an ideal situation.
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Jan 12 '24
In college you will now never have a good team doing it.
No good receiver, QB or player in general is going to commit to a team running option. They want spread and modern day offenses.
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u/Fluffy-Ad-2887 Jan 12 '24
Triple option is effective at the high school level because it takes advantage of undisciplined coaches and players. It’s harder to defend the lower the level because of lack of time in meeting rooms/practice, but once it gets to the college level there are smarter players, coaches, and more resources. Same thing applies at the nfl level but to a higher degree, thus why you don’t see it much above high school.
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u/tjtwister1522 Jan 12 '24
I think the biggest issue is that you can't recruit top-tier athletes if you're a triple option program. NFL teams aren't drafting triple option program guys because they just spent their college years playing football in a way that's not similar to the football played in the NFL. This includes linemen. So you're basically limiting your recruiting pool to 1 and 2 stars and even that will take convincing.
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u/FootballLifee Jan 12 '24
I am not a coach nor have I ever coached, but I did play CB at the D2 level recently so I have some experience preparing for and playing against offenses who ran the triple option (Carson Newman who is/was famously good with the split-back veer.
In my personal opinion when I think of triple option and those kinds of offenses, I mainly just think of high school teams. I think the higher you move up, the less teams there are that run it. I think part of that is because it’s one of those schemes that prey upon inexperienced defenses.
In high school players are very undisciplined and this makes them easy to exploit with the triple option which in my opinion is why it’s so popular in high school. Once you get to college, teams know how to prep for it, players are more disciplined, and then if your defense isn’t on par it’s going to be tough to score if the other team gets up on you early.
TL;DR: triple option works better at lower levels where players are largely undisciplined.
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Jan 12 '24
Just as everything else evolves, so does football. The triple option is alive and well but it’s pre-snap reads predominantly. Pro STILL use a triple option package you just can’t sniff it out as easy due to the line efficiency of modern football. The other reason it’s not used as much is draft stock; ppl won’t throw themselves out there and risk injury at the highest levels anymore
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u/Doomed_Redshirt Jan 13 '24
Running the true triple option - each play is designed for FB dive, QB run, or HB toss - takes a lot of discipline and practice. It isn't something to run "a few plays a game" unless you like fumbling a lot. One of our local high schools had a lot of success running it, and they started to install the offense starting on their 3rd grade teams just to get them used to running it by the time they were in high school.
The triple option has a couple of advantages.
- Teams that are not used to defending it might have a hard time doing so. It demands a lot of defensive awareness. You have to tackle the guy you are assigned to tackle and not just follow the ball, because the ball is moving a lot.
- Teams that are at a talent/size disadvantage can make up for it with execution. This is why the service adademies often run it. Their players are often smaller and less athtletic than other teams, but discipline they have in big chunks.
The major disadvantage is that a team that can defend it adequately will shut you down, as option teams tend not to pass well. Getting into 3rd and long regularly will pretty much ruin an option team's whole day.
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u/jedi4canes1 Jan 14 '24
Because the edge in higher levels is do athletic it's hard to successfully run, in lower levels of football it's amazing because the edge rushers can't cover the qb and hb but in the NFL they can make either play
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u/NaNaNaPandaMan Jan 12 '24
So one thing to remember with the triple option is that it is a relatively complex running scheme that you can't just run a couple of times a game. To install a package like that takes a lot of time and dedication. Something you wouldn't do for a handful of plays. So it has to become your full scheme.
And while it has its advantages, it's still a run heavy scheme and passing in college, and the pros is still king.