Derick E. Hingle-US PRESSWIRE
A new wave of offensive football theory has hit the college football ranks almost as fast as the offense itself.
The hurry-up spread offense brought to fame by Oregon’s Chip Kelly and Arkansas State’s Gus Malzahn is now being brought to Tuscaloosa by the Ole Miss Rebels in a form that may be more difficult to defend than other programs that are more experienced in it, like Oregon and West Virginia.
This particular Rebels offense earns its bread on two things: fast pace and the read option.
Too fast for everybody
After a day jam-packed of fantastic college football, Ole Miss finally had the stage to itself as it hosted Texas on ESPN in the nightcap kickoff slot. Television exposure is always great for a program, especially one that is trying to climb back to legitimacy like the Rebs.
Except when your guys can’t be caught on frame.
To open the game, Ole Miss ran a read option (discussed in deep, deep detail later) for a gain of five yards. While the cameraman was focusing on Texas free safety Kenny Vaccaro II and the commentators were giving their analysis, Ole Miss had already lined up again and ran a play. Those watching on the Longhorn Network barely got to see the tackle.
The offense has now proven it is too quick for the camera crew. And wants more.
Next play, Ole Miss changes its formation, dramatically. Texas tries to adapt fast, knowing the ball is being snapped soon. In doing so, Texas forgets a key part of the play: pretty much every bit of green grass in between the hash marks. A quick quarterback run up the middle and the Rebels get a first down.
After an incompletion, the viewers get a wake-up call. The Rebels have run four plays, three of them runs, for a first down and have expired barely over a minute of clock.
The consistency of the offense is truly spectacular, to the point that it compares favorably with those at Oregon and West Virginia. The Rebels have averaged under 22 seconds in between plays. The average of Alabama’s opponents this season? One play per 31.35 seconds. That’s ten seconds of checks and signals that Alabama doesn’t have anymore.
Too many options
Throughout the history of college football, the most successful offenses have mostly featured plays that can go any direction, even change directions during the play.
Army’s Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside achieved fame through the triple option attack that is still run at schools such as Army, Navy and Georgia Tech. Alabama had unparalleled success in the Wishbone offense that often featured option plays.
More recently, Oregon, and now Ole Miss, have had success with the read option.
In the read option, the quarterback reads the weak side defensive end to decide if he will hand the ball off to his running back or take it himself (explanation below).
Imagine the quarterback and the running back in the shotgun formation, with the running back to his left. When the quarterback receives the snap, the running back proceeds to run across the quarterback’s face towards the right side of the formation. As the quarterback sticks the ball where the running back’s stomach will be, he has his eyes on the defensive end on the left side of the formation. If that defensive end thinks the play is a run for the halfback and crashes into the pocket after the halfback, the quarterback will pull the ball at the last second and run where that end used to be. If the end stays home and blocks that running lane, the ball gets handed off to the running back.
This way, especially with guards or tight ends pulling on occasion, the tun can go to either sideline and no one knows (including the offense) until the very last moment.
Even more difficult is the fact that Ole Miss specializes in the zone read option, in which the offensive line blocks in a zone scheme. Instead of matching up with a certain man at the line of scrimmage, the linemen take a certain area of field and block whoever may be occupying it. In that scheme, linebackers can’t find two lineman that are faced up with defensive lineman and shoot between them, because he has not idea where the linemen are going to go to block.
Long story short, those linebackers have to take an extra second or two to read where the hole in the protection is, the same one or two seconds that lets the play to develop past the point of no return for the defense.
Staying the course
Ole Miss is primed and ready for a big test like it will receive against the Tide. The Rebels are actually more prepared than Oregon and West Virginia would be.
All three teams to this point in the season have only played one game that was not against what is generally considered a cupcake opponent. Ole Miss sprinkled a match-up with Texas into season-opening games with Central Arkansas, UTEP and Tulane. Oregon tuned up for its game against Arizona with meetings with Arkansas State, Fresno State and Tennessee Tech. Before clashing with Maryland, the Mountaineers met Marshall and James Madison.
In those games, Ole Miss was the best at keeping its offensive identity. Oregon saw its offense slow down a full four seconds per play against Arizona, and West Virginia ground down to a five-second slower pace against Maryland. Ole Miss against Texas? The fastest of the three, running one play ever 21 and a half seconds.
The numbers show that Ole Miss is also better at keeping its balance game-in-and-game-out. Ole Miss averages 228 rushing yards per game and 259 passing yards per game, a 31 yard difference between the two that trumps Oregon’s 36 and West Virginia’s 211.
ESPN has a show called Numbers Never Lie, which is a lie in and of itself. Sometimes, they do lie. Statistics can be misleading at times, but not these. Ole Miss brings a real threat to Tuscaloosa that Alabama has not seen before this season and will not see again. Those types of offenses, the isolated incident situation, are the ones that wreak havoc on defenses (see: Georgia Southern, 2011).
Follow Brett on Twitter.