Never had to do it, but someday I am sure that we will have to defend the pistol offense. Now it can’t be but so different from other offensive football schemes. After all, there aren’t many new ideas in football. I’ve been trying to gather some information on the Pistol but it is tough. Actually, the best resource I have is a few old American Football Monthly’s laying around.

From what I know of the offense, it allows you to run the same offensive plays that have become so popular from the Gun, but still maintain some of the old favorites from the I-Formation and other under-center offenses. To me, what this means is I can run Inside Zone, Stretch, Triple Option, and still run the Midline Option. I know that Jerry Campbell likes the Pistol because of the ability to run the midline. Can you run a Zone Read out of the Pistol? I suppose you can do anything you want, but the angles don’t seem beneficial to me.

One benefit I do see from this, is bringing back the ability of the I-Offense to run your play to the left or to the right without any real tip-off to the defense. With the Shotgun Zone Read or Triple Option, we know the play is either going one particular direction (by the set of the back), or it will be a counter play or some other play design. But you can only run that true Zone Read – often the bread and butter of an offense – in one direction. We’ll take that away from you and deal with the rest! With the pistol, that just isn’t the case though.

I’m sure there are other benefits that all of the coaches from Nevada have espoused throughout the last 5 years or so. It is definitely a force to be reckoned with, which is why I have begun to put some extra time into examining the Pistol Offense. If there’s any pistol guru’s out there who want to get into this thing, I’d love it.