Maybe counterintuitive, but the 2013 pistol stuff was far more elementary than our base flexbone offense. It was easier to "figure out" in the sense that there was less going on in the running game. The passing game was pretty much the same - at Duke, Vad had two touchdown passes out of pistol, one to Smelter, one to Godhigh. Both were on the passing concept "Switch," where the A-Back and WR replace each other (you'll recognize it - the WR bows in and then gets vertical, the a-back wheels outward and gets vertical) and then have a few options based on coverage. This was an extremely common play for us from the under-center look. Interestingly, on the pass to Smelter, the A-Back was aligned like a traditional slot, while the pass to Godhigh was off the "triangle" pistol backfield that was our more standard pistol look. The downside of that triangle loaded backfield was you don't have 4 immediate vertical threats to dictate coverage, but we clearly made it work well enough.
Our running game out of pistol was based off of a frontside read of the end-man-on-line-of-scrimmage ("EMLOS"), where the QB can give to the A-back coming across his face or keep it into the B-gap. In one sense, it was like an inverted veer read; very Cam Newtonish. There was a backside guard pulling around that one. It was a nice dumb powerful play. I don't know how many counters we had drawn up for it, given the short shelf life of the thing. We didn't show a bunch.
Did Vad leave because we went away from the pistol? I don't know. It seems unlikely to me. Rewatching the 2013 Duke game (and some of what he did v. Georgia that year), I am reminded of how talented Vad was when he was on. The guy had a big arm and really great touch (again, when he was on). But I don't think he was going to beat out JT in 2014. And JT in 2014 clearly didn't need the pistol look to thrive.
The "what might have been" part of 2014 for me isn't the shotgun or pistol stuff or whatnot. JT was perfect from under center. It's that it would have been cool to throw it 15-17 times a game with that WR duo, rather than 10-12. But we had such a deep roster of A-Backs, B-Backs, and JT running the ball, so it's hard to say WHEN we should have been throwing it.
In 2017 and 2018, I wouldn't have thrown more. Heck, one could argue we threw too much in 2018, given our limitations. I don't know if going back to the 2013 pistol would have done much for recruiting, given the fact that we weren't equipped to really throw the ball out of any formation. That strikes me as less about recruiting QBs than it does really bad luck at the position.
Back to present. I would obviously love to see Monken or Bohannon, but I bet Chadwell could do good things with Pyron, who I love already. He's got "it."
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