Nevada vs Hawaii

They run a great counter trey that seems to work very well, I love watching that play. Double team chip at the POA, backside guard and tightend pull with a kick out and a lead. FB counter steps and the QB has a nice fake.

I too would like to run it some day. Sweet offense to say the least, especially considering how effective it is or at least could be with an option game.

I think the hype comes just from it being something different. Anything different that is moderately successful will be hyped. Even as you mention, the difference in this case is not all that much.

It blends the advantages of the shotgun with the advantages of having a "down the hill runner".........Zone from shotgun is a lateral movement.....in pistol, it is exactly like from under center, the RB hits the hole going down hill.

When I first saw the Pistol I was not a coach yet and actually it was only last year when Nevada played Miami in the MPC Bowl on the blue turf. Now, my knowledge of football was less then what it is today (Probably hard to believe, Dubber) and I thought it was different and would be a good way to have some fun with the younger kids and a safer way to run a shotgun type formation. Now I try to get my hands on any thing I can find about and I have 3 Nevada games tape.
Here is part of a power point presentation I found in this wonderful site on why to run pistol

* Snap is safer and simpler
* Plays hit quicker then gun
* Creates better angles then under center
* Great backside QB reads (veer)
* QB takes deeper drops which creates better vision
* Great deception for boots and PA passing

Now I am not trying to argue it is better or worse then anything else I am just saying I like it and been studying it for a little bit. I have never heard some one say the disadvantages of it and if some one has some please let me know it could really help me in learning more about it.

I don't think that the advantages necessarily equate to the amount of "hype" (sometimes the announcers act like it is the most significant change in football since rugby).

However, I do think that it could help you hide any tendencies that you MAY have with the back offset in either direction.

It allows you to easily block, run, and release the back in either direction.

And, it would give you the ability to easily add some sort of spin/triple-shoot package your shotgun set.

Example: Slot motions and runs between the QB and the RB, on the snap the QB turns/spins and fakes or gives to the slot for the jet sweep, fakes or gives to the RB (left or right), then drops to pass or roll out.

The Pistol has marginal advantages as just another formation that a spread and/or one-back team could run. Those who profess to run the "pistol offense" are really just running a grab-bag of spread and one-back concepts or are simply limiting themselves further by pretending that what they are doing is an "offense" as opposed to a formation.

The only "Advantage" the pistol has over the gun spread is a true one, but comes more from a limitation of the gun spread option game: in the pistol you can run the dive back in the triple to the same side that the QB and pitch back will go to. Thus you can get the playside combos and better identify your reads as you can with the traditional I (Nebraska) option, splitback veer, or wishbone. I have repeatedly emphasized that a big limit on the gun option stuff (See Texas A&M) is that your "read" does not guarantee yards to your dive-back (because all you're doing is running normal frontside zone) in the same way that your dive-read in the traditional offense will because of the real playside combos along with that unblocked guy.

In other words, the gun-triple off the zone read just makes sure that the backside guy stays at home, as you would hope he would do anyway. It doesn't actually "improve" the zone part of it in the same way that normal option dives are. So the pistol, because the RB is behind the QB, can get the same playside triple look.

But guess what? How different is this than running him under center? I don't think Nebraska had a big problem utilizing the mobile QB and these same plays from under center. And in fact I think the normal "zone-read" itself is WORSE under the pistol because you don't get the West Virginia-style Pat White/Steve Slaton effect (just to use a common example) where two very dangerous rushers go in opposite directions and you don't know who has the ball. This is the prime virtue of the zone read.

I don't mean to demean those who swear by the Pistol, but to me it's something you'd spend an afternoon putting in as a changeup. I will make the (difficult to substantiate) claim that Nevada's offense success has more to do with the basic plays they are running and their level of execution than the Pistol. If they were under center or a traditional gun team (or a mix of both) I think they might even be more successful than they are now.

Alittle off topic but A&M runs one type gun option as opposed ot the Demeo version in which the dive back, Q and pitch all go to the same side. The play will sometimes cut back to the opposite A gap but it is not the gun zone read option like Utah did and A&M does now.

For use it allows us to be completely balanced presnap. I do agree that the pistol is a formation and not a true offense. what gets me about the pistol and even some of the gun option stuff is flag football teams have been running the stuff for years. we use to call it the Sigma Chi offense because they had run it for years but they use to run the crazy option 15 or more years ago.

I agree that both have their place. One of the things Demeo stress is that the "dive" back in his system drives for 5. He feels that even if it is a bad read the RB should get 5 or so yards. My point mainly was that there is of course more than one type of gun option and not all of them are cross type action.

I got a chance to go to the WVU game sat and it was interestign watching the WVU in person

Even though the regular spread gun has a backfield strength the defense can't really make any adjustments unless its to the field. If I'm in a 2x2 with the RB to the right of the quarterback I can run zone to the left, read up the gut like DeMeo runs, or a QB power to the right. I Could also bring the left wing into motion and run Triple option. You can't really pick a strength in gun either.