One of the trademarks of my Pistol-Flex Triple Option offense is its “grind-it-out”, take time off the clock type of play. As a coach, I want my offense to take time off the clock. I want the game to be as short as possible. Why? There are two reasons: a) by taking time off the clock with our particular type of offense, we will keep our opponent’s offense off the field; b) by the second half of the game, our opponent’s defensive front will be extremely tired as they will have been on the field for much of the first two quarters of the game. This will turn our 2-5 yard gains into 8+ yard gains, as these defenders will not have the steam to make any strong tackles.
However, having said that, this by no means renders this offense incapable of producing the occasional “big play”! Indeed, once we have established the B-back “inside” dive game, it will keep any defensive pursuit towards the perimeter to a minimum as the defense becomes so concerned with stopping the “up the gut” dive play. As a result, the perimeter becomes very susceptible to the pitch phase of the triple option. Your A-back will have a field day exploiting this vulnerability in the defense.
Another “big-play” potentiality comes in the form of our play-action-pass scheme. As the defense begins to protect more and more versus the “run”, one on one coverage on our wide receivers makes the long bomb pass more realistic.
So, for those coaches who mistakenly believe that the Pistol-Flex is only a slow-paced, time-consuming offense, I hope that this article has shed some light on the subject.