Pistol Offense

didn't see it. Can you describe it some?

If we didn't run jets out of the gun, we would have the back do that. Makes it truly balanced formation.

That's what I was going to ask, I had thought that what Nevada is doing, is indeed very similar to the single wing..

Well, run the jet the way we do. We try and block everyone instead of let flow and inside run threats hold people

catch a replay of it on Fox Sports Net...usually one of the west coast or cali ones will replay it atleast once

they showd it tonight on ESPNU and being that all Pac10 and WAC teams have ties to FSN you are assured to see it replayed atleast once on FSN

You might be able to catch a replay on ESPN in the wee hours of the morning sometime during the week. In AZ, I can usually cathc the games they broadcast later in the week around 1 AM. Hope this helps, I know that I will be looking for it.

I watched most of the game and took some notes. I agree with those that said it seemed like single-wing. The play that fresno could not stop in the first half was basically a belly play. I know they zone blocked it some of the time, but they also looked to be running some kind of a G-scheme. Then then ran a keeper off of it and may have been pulling more than one guy out in front of the QB. Same action for the play action and sprint out pass. They were gashing Fresno's defense in the first half. As I was watching the game, I was wondering whether the zone read type plays could be made to work with the RB behind the center as opposed to beside and slightly behind him. I like the shotgun style option out of two backs because of the ability to run option either direction. In one back, the offense is limited to which side you can read because of his alignment. I also am more inclined to run the shotgun option in a similar fashion as Texas A&M. Rather than running the diveback to the left and reading the right DE for give or pull, A&M seems to run more of a tradtional veer mesh out of the gun. I wonder if you could time up the mesh with the QB in the gun (or Pistol) with the diveback right behind him? I wish I had spring ball the tinker with it...

Another quick thought...I was heckled all year for not running much from a shotgun formation, even in passing situations, but I didn't feel like it was our offense, and I am leery of bad snaps... Nevada had just picked up a key first down with about 3 minutes to go (clock stopped working with six minutes left!) and were ready to simply run the clock out, or at least force Fresno to use all their TOs. All of the sudden, the snap goes over the QBs head and they lose 20 yards! They eventually have to punt, Fresno scores in 51 seconds, and Nevada has to recover an onside (which they barely were able to do) to preserve the win. I was sitting there the whole game thinking "man, how cool is this Pistol offense? Maybe all the dads are right...we should be in the gun!" Then the bad snap happened (crucial time) and I turned to my wife and said "that's why we're not a shotgun team!" She didn't care.

I know there are a ton of teams out there that hang their hat on shotgun style offense and seem to avoid the killer bad snap. But it looms over my thinking like a dark cloud...

Am I being overly conservative, or do the Pros outweigh the potential Cons?

^^^ I like those ideas.

I finally found a Fb site where this is being discussed! I have posted on a couple other sites and no discussion has taken place. I too watched the Nevada game and was intrigued. What plays to you see you could run from this set? Dive (zone), speed option, Jet, QB trap (fake dive and cutback), Counter -Nevada ran it with a slot faking the dive w/ the slot coming back underneath. You jet experts (which I am not) what would you have the RB do? Nevada had a nice pass plays w/ the QB reversing out and faking the dive and rolling that way and the other was boot away. If anyone knows where to get a playbook please help me out. If you are coming up with stuff/thoughts lets share! Looked like you could run the I formation and blend the Pistol pretty easy. How do you think TB counter would work from Pistol?

a year later.....any advances in the proliferation of the pistol?

We actually started running the pistol offense as our base this year. Don't really know the intracacies of the offense as I am a defensive coach but it's worked out pretty well for us so far (we're 8-0). I know one of the concerns is the snap, we pretty much ironed that out over spring and summer. We've probably had 4 or 5 bad snaps all season but they were all low and none resulting in a loss of more than 3 yards. Our bread and butter play is the zone but we also run option, FB trap, QB trap, ctr, speed sweep and regular sweep with the z or slot, and toss. We are also incorporating more of our old wing-t stuff (we ran the wing t for 13 years) into the running game. Our kids have bought into the offense and are really having fun with it. Not as much single wing stuff as what you guys are discussing though.

From what I've seen of it, it looks like the Wing-T with the QB back a little further. They still run all of the basic wing-t plays; in the cut-ups I've seen, the trap/waggle show up all the time.