Just saw ESPN put out their award candidate list for every team and I scrolled down to our Horned Frogs section. They pick some names they think might win hardware and I cannot help but laugh. Reminds me of the early 90s when we ran the option under Coach Sullivan and nobody gave us a sniff at individual awards because we were too busy grinding out 4 yards a carry and controlling the clock. We did not have a single player on anybody's preseason watch list back in 1991 and we still went out and beat Texas in Austin running that triple option until their defense was on their heels by the fourth quarter.
You want to know what built this program? It was not these award lists or offseason hype. It was the fullback dive off the option read. It was the quarterback putting the ball in the gut of the running back and reading the defensive end. It was the pitch relationship on the outside. We used to run the option so much that dfeenses would key on it and we would still run it anyway because we were tougher than them. Coach Patterson understood that the option offense was a mentality. You control the clock, you control the game, you wear down the other team and by the fourth quarter they do not want to tackle anymore.
Now everything is about these spread offenses and throwing it 50 times a game. Kids do not learn how to block on the perimeter anymore. They do not understand the discipline of the mesh point. The option offense is a lost art and it breaks my heart because that is what made us who we were. We ran the option when nobody else would and we won because of it. These award lists do not factor in the grit it takes to run that offense for four quarters in the Texas heat.