Wait so Oklahoma State is bringing the nation's number one Group of Five offense to Stillwater and everyone is acting like Eric Morris invented football. Eric Morris ran the Air Raid at Texas Tech under Mike Leach and then went to North Texas and put up video game numbers. I get it. I really do. But watching the sport copmletely abandon the option game makes me want to scream into a pillow every single Saturday.
You want to know what real football looked like? Go watch the 1998 Sun Bowl tape when we ran the option down the other team's throat for four quarters. That was football. The mesh point. The fullback dive. The pitch read. The quarterback making a defensive end commit and then pulling the ball at the last second. That was art. That was violence disguised as choreography.
Now everything is five wide and throw it 60 times a game and run some RPO where the quarterback never even gets hit. The option taught you toughness. It taught you discipline. If your fullback missed his block you were getting stuffed for a two yard loss and Coach Sullivan would have you running stadium steps until you threw up. That built character. That built men.
Eric Morris is going to put up 500 yards passing against half the Big 12 and people are going to call him an offensive genius. And maybe he is. But I miss the days when you could run the triple option for 350 yards and control the clock and make the other team quit in the fourth quarter because they were tired of getting hit. The option was a mentality. It was a way of life.
Now it is all about getting skill guys in space and running track meets. Nobody wants to line up and run the ball between the tackles anymore. Nobody wants to teach a quarterback how to read a defensive end instead of reading a coverage shell. The option is dying and it breaks my heart.
I remember when we played in the 2000 Mobile Alabama Bowl and ran the option for 280 yards. That was a beautiful thing. You do not see that kind of football anymore. You see highlights and vertical routes and quarterbacks scrambling around. You do not see a fullback lead blocking through the hole and a quarterback pitching it at the last second to a trailing back. That was real football.
Give me the option over the Air Raid any day of the week. Give me a quarterback who can run the midline read and a fullback who can lead block and a coaching staff that believes in physical football. Eric Morris can have his passing yards. I will take the old way every single time.