2008.04.20

On Thursday, Dr. Clancy Hardman, MO (Mini-Omega) and I attended a Central State spring football practice. Clancy was kind enough to introduce me to the various coaches as we watched practice from the sideline. In typical MO fashion, the boy wandered off away from Clancy and me. The boy found his way to a loose football and preceded to play catch on the sidelines for probably 20-minutes with one of the players. While MO was off playing catch, one of the coaches suggested to me that during season, MO could serve as a game day ball boy. I have not told MO about the ball boy invite otherwise, I will never hear the end of it.

The coaches were great with MO. The offensive coordinator poked MO and told him he will need to suit up for the Marauders in a couple of years. As we were leaving the practice, the head coach invited MO to attend the Central State youth football camp coming up in late June.

Yesterday, Dr. Clancy Hardman and I spent the day at the University of Charleston in West Virginia learning about the triple-gun offense. It is a hybrids offense that combines the best of both worlds. The offense is half triple option and half drop back passing.

I love the triple option. It is a wonderful offense for teams that do not have blue chip, 5 star athletes across the board. The goal of the triple option is gain four yards per play and move down the field in slow and steady chunks that eat away at the clock and shorten the game.

The big drawback to the triple option offense is that if you are faced with 3rd down and 5 or longer, you are in trouble. The triple option is not very successful at picking 6 and 8 yards and a time especially when there are 8 or 9 defenders in the box.

Offensively, we struggled last season as teams stacked 8 and 9 defenders in the box. The pressure was coming hard and heavy on every play. There was not time for reverses, double reverses, halfback option passes, etc. The cornerbacks played a lot of press coverage or no more than 5 yards off of the line. The corner's eyes were always in our offensive backfield staring at the quarterback. If we attempted a pass out in flats, the corner was sitting on it. The corner could easily break on the ball and knock it down if not intercept it.

There is a drop back and quick passing component to the triple gun offense. If the defense is in an 8 or 9 man front, the offense has to pass them out of it. Bottom-line, this fall, we will need to spend a lot more time working on our vertical passing game. We have to come out and prove that defenses have to respect the pass and back off of the pressure. Once the defense has backed off, we can begin to run the ball.