Adding A "Pistol" Series To The Offense Could Have Some Advantages

In looking at ways that the Mike Sherman can adopt the offense to utilize the talent we have while still keeping some of the concepts he wants to eventually incorporate into his preferred scheme (the West Coast Offense), I began thinking about the "Pistol offense" Chris Ault runs at Nevada. The Pistol features the QB in a modified shotgun (hence, the pistol nickname) about 4 yds back from the center, with the TB at a more traditional I-formation depth of roughly 7 yds, right behind the center. This gives the QB the advantage of already having some depth to get into his dropback for the passing game, while also giving the TB the depth to begin running downhill similar to a normal I-formation attack. The Pistol thrives when you have a skilled dual-threat at QB like Nevada currently has in Colin Kaepernick, the WAC's reigning offensive player of the year. A&M has a similar dual-threat QB in Jerrod Johnson., a player who can be equally as dangerous running or passing the ball. The Pistol also excels when you have stellar wide receivers to take advantage of its elements of the spread passing game, and we have those receivers in Jeff Fuller, Ryan Tannehill, and Terrence McCoy.

The biggest advantage of running the Pistol is what it does for your running game. You can use the staples of power football from the I-formation while also utilizing the option game. With Jerrod Johnson at QB and a stable of backs including Cyrus Gray, Bradley Stephens, and Christine Michael, A&M has the players to make the option game work. A dangerous play in the option arsenal of the Pistol is the midline option. The video below shows Nevada running the midline option:

The title of the video calls the play a veer, but the veer to me means an element of the the triple option, a true two-read play, and this is just a simple midline read. The midline option is a very simple play: Basically, the offensive lines leaves one defensive lineman unblocked, and then blocks down playside. The unblocked defender is often a dangerous defensive tackle or defensive end who the line is having trouble blocking. Midline gives you the option of forcing that defender to make a decision to choose playing the QB or the TB on the play, and then based on the defenders decision, the QB makes his read and either gives to the TB who will follow his blocking playside, or he will keep the ball and go outside as the defenders crashes down on the TB. You can see how #94 in the video attempts to read the play, then crashes down to stop the TB as Kaepernick goes untouched to the outside. The Pistol midline option would be a particularly useful play to have in our arsenal when we face Oklahoma, with their two stud defensive tackle in DeMarcus Granger and Gerald McCoy. If we have both offensive guards and the center triple-teaming one, we can leave the other unblocked for the read, while the other offensive tackle kicks out the end. I could see us running this play with either Christine Michael or Cyrus Gray in the backfield with Johnson.

The Pistol also gives you the ability to use the speed option and the play-action passing game off of the option game. More importantly, the power concepts from the running game are in line with what Coach Sherman wants to eventually do with a West Coast Offense scheme. The advantage of the option game of the Pistol for us would be that we have a young offensive line, and it would give us a schematic way to deal with stellar defensive lines if we can't yet match them in the personnel department. The blocking scheme for the offensive line in the Pistol can use the same zone principles we use in our normal running game from the spread, while adding a few new rules for the option game. We already have the basic structure in place in our offense to run this series, we just need to add some new tweaks along with this formation to make it work.

Currently, no one runs the Pistol in the Big 12 Conference, so installing a Pistol series into our offense would allow us to force the opposition to learn to defend something they don't see the rest of the season. Being contrarian on offense has other advantages, too, in that we're able to utilize our personnel better, and I think it would be really entertaining for the fans.

We don't need anything complicated in the series, just a basic off-tackle play, the midline option, possibly a triple-option play where we have  Gray or Stephens motioning from the slot to the pitchman position (assuming Christine Michael would be a diveback), a counter, and then the play-action passing game using Jamie McCoy at TE and Fuller, Terrence McCoy, and Tannehill at WR.

The only disadvantage I can see to installing a Pistol series in our offense is that it takes practice time to get the option game down efficiently, but I think the advantages of having this series completely outweigh disadvantages.