Wofford coach Mike Ayers has established himself as a noted offensive mind, using a form of the triple option to build the Terriers' attack into something that is productive and feared.
It's always fun to pick the brains of the people who do this stuff for a living, so a recent conversation with Ayers presented a good opportunity to see what he thinks of the offense Chad Morris is installing at Clemson.
It happens to be the hip thing in college football, what with Gus Malzahn and Chip Kelly using it with great success at Auburn and Oregon, respectively.
Clemson fans, of course, are hoping the trend continues this season and beyond with Morris and Clemson.
Here's what Ayers thinks about the funky, up-tempo offense.
On it not being the typical finesse, chuck-it-40-times-a-game spread:
"The big thing about what you're seeing in football today is, you're getting back to the philosophy of running the football. The thing that has probably been proven over the years -- and I'm talking the past three-quarters of a century -- is there's certain basics that are going to win for you, and certain things that are going to lose for you. Most coaches want to be able to run the football effectively. From a defensive standpoint, almost every coach America wants to stop the run.
"With the new philosophy coming out, they give you multiple sets and they try to create numbers and spacing. What they do after that is, they'll attack the fewest numbers with the most people. They'll do their best to get mismatches as far as on the perimeter, and then you take a great back and put him in space and let him do his deal. If you get to where you cannot stop the run effectively, if they can mix and match run to pass, then it's going to be a long day for you. We have found that the better we run it, the more opportunities we have to throw home runs. A lot of times people that know our style of football, a lot of our routes are vertical routes. We like the vertical game. Our first look is always going to be deep to short versus short to deep if we're in a throwing situation."
On whether the NCAA, in light of an increasing number of offenses using breakneck tempos to their advantage, might ultimately impose rules that favor defenses:
"That's a style of offense that people have developed, and it's a style that is no different to me than you come up with a style of running plays, whether it's three-back concepts or I or one-back, throwing it all over the place, empty or whatever. That's just part of the game. You've got to deal with it. The great thing about football coaches in this game, they're going to find a way. You can be ahead one year or two years, and then all of a sudden the defenses will catch up. So ultimately, it's up to the people that are going against these fast-paced, up-tempo styles to devise a plan.
"Number one, you better be in great shape. Number two, if there's an opportunity to substitute, you better substitute. A lot of the up-tempo stuff, I'm sure in their head they have a schedule. And that schedule is, 'If we have a play and the play is 4 yards or more, we're going right to the line of scrimmage and we're going to run another play.' And if they get into a negative play, they may chew that one over a little bit longer.' That may be part of their philosophy as far as calling plays and things like that.
"In some cases, you know that your guys are probably going to be better and physically in great shape. If you see a team that might not be as conditioned as yours, you see the way they're reacting to heat and stuff like that, you're going to do everything you can do to put the pedal to the metal and get after them as long as you can until they break.
"A lot of it comes down to: If you want a great defense, have a productive offense where you're controlling the clock and keeping your defense fresh and keeping their offense on the boundary. No matter how fast they are, if they're sitting on the bench and drinking Gatorade, you've got a chance."
On the difference between his shotgun option offense and the Malzahn/Morris approach:
"Most of the time their option is a double option. By that, it's going to be them handing it to the back or the quarterback is going to keep it. We run triple option, we run trap-trap option, we run belly-belly option. And we do pretty much the same package out of the gun as we do under center. The difference would be the blocking and where the backs and the quarterbacks are lined up.
"Some of the triple-option phase has been introduced at some of those places, where the quarterback will have the option to run it, hand it off or throw it into the flat depending on what the defensive back or linebacker does. But you've got to make sure someone is accounting for your end-run force guy on defense. So a lot of times, that may not be quite the play that you need depending on the formation that you have."
LW
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