Triple Option

GT_05

GT_05

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This has probably been discussed ad nauseum but quite a few teams employed the triple option at one point in the past and moved away from it. How long did it take them to “rebuild”? I’ve been on this board for quite a while and the triple option has been blamed as the root of nearly all of our current woes on offense and defense. I’m not hung up on wins and losses at year three but I am hung up on wanting to see steady progress and I want to get away from this Jekyll and Hyde nonsense. When can we stop blaming the triple option? It’s hard to drive looking in the rear view mirror.
 
GT_05

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What is helping then? There is nothing unique about this rebuild. Many teams have done it. How long did it take? I’m having trouble finding answers online.
 
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Augusta_Jacket said:
You assert that many teams have done it and yet you yourself ask for examples. Why don't you provide some insight?
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It, or some variation, was a popular scheme at one point in time but I cannot find things like “Team X quit running it in 19XX”. If I could find specifics, I could look at records during the transition.

www.google.com

Oklahoma football: The 50-year anniversary of the famed ‘Wishbone’

This season marks the 50th anniversary of the iconic Wishbone offense.
www.google.com www.google.com
 
CuseJacket

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GT_05 said:
This has probably been discussed ad nauseum but quite a few teams employed the triple option at one point in the past and moved away from it. How long did it take them to “rebuild”? I’ve been on this board for quite a while and the triple option has been blamed as the root of nearly all of our current woes on offense and defense. I’m not hung up on wins and losses at year three but I am hung up on wanting to see steady progress and I want to get away from this Jekyll and Hyde nonsense. When can we stop blaming the triple option? It’s hard to drive looking in the rear view mirror.
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I don't mind your post, but I think you're going to continue to be surprised by the responses based on the premise you presented.

I'll grant you I may have missed posts stating that the triple option has been blamed as the root of nearly all of our current woes. But I'll bet you the number of fonts who have attributed that to this season's results are less than 5. My sense is that most agree that triple option teachings have been entirely unlearned. I'd be interested to know if there's significant evidence to the contrary or if folks disagree though.

More likely you're misconstruing comments around talent. Some argue CGC is better at recruiting no matter the prior offense and that those players are still in their 2nd year at best. There is more that has gone into recruiting improvement including factors above and beyond the prior coaching staff (funding, AD support, etc.), with many of those barriers partially ameliorated by ADTS. Both of those things could be true and are probably trumpeted as much as anything.
 

jgtengineer

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smokey_wasp said:
You aren't going to find relevant modern examples, I don't think. Examples from 30-50 years ago aren't going to tell you anything.
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The closes you will get to an "option" going to a pro style modern example is malzahns cam newton offense (whcih had a lot of veer in it on the line) to Loefler's offense at auburn and well lets just say that didn't work.
 
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jgtengineer said:
The closes you will get to an "option" going to a pro style modern example is malzahns cam newton offense (whcih had a lot of veer in it on the line) to Loefler's offense at auburn and well lets just say that didn't work.
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This is good info. Thanks. It looks like Malzahn left as OC in 2011. Loefler was OC in 2012 and then Lashlee was OC in 2013. Auburn played for the Natty in 2014.
 
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GoJacketsInRaleigh said:
30-50 years ago? Apples to apples?
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The first sentence of the article says it was running rampant in the mid to late 90s so the transition has happened sometime since then. Regardless of when it happened, I feel like they would have faced similar challenges.
 
GT_05

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CuseJacket said:
I don't mind your post, but I think you're going to continue to be surprised by the responses based on the premise you presented.

I'll grant you I may have missed posts stating that the triple option has been blamed as the root of nearly all of our current woes. But I'll bet you the number of fonts who have attributed that to this season's results are less than 5. My sense is that most agree that triple option teachings have been entirely unlearned. I'd be interested to know if there's significant evidence to the contrary or if folks disagree though.

More likely you're misconstruing comments around talent. Some argue CGC is better at recruiting no matter the prior offense and that those players are still in their 2nd year at best. There is more that has gone into recruiting improvement including factors above and beyond the prior coaching staff (funding, AD support, etc.), with many of those barriers partially ameliorated by ADTS. Both of those things could be true and are probably trumpeted as much as anything.
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Root of our current woes, meaning that the CPJ and TO era was when our problems started. Meaning that our roster wasn’t fit for our new offense when CGC took over and still resonates today. I’ve even seen some fonts on this board say that our offense back then even diminished our defensive recruiting because recruits didn’t want to even practice against it. I’m not sure that I agree with any of these but I’ve seen posts like these since the transition began.

Regardless, I was having trouble finding out the exact seasons when other teams stopped running the option so I could try to see if or when the transition was successful.
 
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Vespidae said:
Bama switched in 83. It's not as if one totally forgets conventional football. The biggest issue is the OL.
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1983 was when Ray Perkins took over for Bear Bryant. They were 8-4 in ‘83, 5-6 in ‘84, 9-2 in ‘85, and 10-3 in ‘86. Not much of a fall off from ‘81 and ‘82 but the fans might not have been happy since they weren’t at late 70s levels. Curry comes in ‘87.
 
slugboy

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The Wishbone and the 3O aren’t identical, and Johnson had a special blocking scheme. Nebraska ran the wishbone in the 90’s, but with a huge OL. They transitioned pretty quickly, but transitioned from a run heavy offense to a slightly less run heavy offense. I’m not sure how much their blocking changed

2019 was not all about the offensive transition. We had a very low amount of “returning production”, on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball for us. And by low, I mean bottom 10-15 out of about 130 teams. It wasn’t going to be a good year.

That doesn’t mean I think it takes 5 years to move off the option. That opinion does seem to be popular with some college coaches, though.
 

jgtengineer

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GT_05 said:
This is good info. Thanks. It looks like Malzahn left as OC in 2011. Loefler was OC in 2012 and then Lashlee was OC in 2013. Auburn played for the Natty in 2014.
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Yep they abandoned the loefler offience after one year and went back to a spread option to take advantage of their personell.
 
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