Watching some of these spring practice clips and all I see is shotgun spread, RPO reaads, and quarterbacks standing in the pocket like statues. Makes me miss the days when we actually ran the option and made defenses earn every single yard. Remember that 1992 Sugar Bowl when we lined up in the wishbone against Miami and just pounded them into submission? That triple option was beautiful football. The mesh point, the fullback dive faking the dive, the quarterback reading that defensive end and deciding whether to pitch it or keep it. That was real football, not this five-wide stuff where everybody is running track.
You watch Navy or Army run their option schemes and it is like watching a dying art form. Those service academy teams still understand something most of these fancy spread offenses have forgotten. Football is about controlling the line of scrimmage and making the defense wrong no matter what they do. The option does that better than any scheme ever invented. We used to run...