I miss more than anything watching these spring practices now? The option game. I mean really running the option, where the quarterback had to read a defensive end live and make a split-second decision with a linebacker flying downhill. These spread offenses where everybody lines up in the shotgun and the quarterback just looks for the quick screen or the RPO handoff, that ain't football. That's backyard toss.
I remember sitting in Death Valley back in the late 80s watching us run the veer option out of the bone. You had to have a quarterback with some guts, somebody willing to take a hit. None of these guys silding before contact or stepping out of bounds. The option was about trust between the quarterback and the fullback, the quarterback and the pitch man. One wrong read and you are eating turf with a 250-pound end planting you into the ground. That built character.
Now every offense looks the same. Tempo, tempo, tempo. Nobody knows how to run a midline read or a triple option anymore. We had a stretch in the early 90s where we could run the ball on anybody because the defense had to account for the quarterback as a runner. Remember the 1992 Independence Bowl against BYU? We ran the option out of the I-formation and they never figured out who had the ball. That was coaching. That was execution.
The portal killed the option too. Why would a five-star quarterback learn how to read a defensive end and take hits when he can just transfer to some spread offense and throw it 50 times a game? The position has gotten soft. NIL money is making these kids avoid contact. Back in my day if you wanted to be a quarterback at LSU you better be ready to run the option and take a lick. That was the price of admission.
I see Clemson on the schedule this fall and I wonder if either team will run a single option play. Probably not. It is all shotgun draws and bubble screens now. The option was art. The option was violence. The option was LSU football. And we killed it for highlight reels and passing stats. Shameful.