Mailbag: The next Virginia Football coach needs to run a triple-option offense

The next UVA coach ought to focus on defense and a version of triple-option (wing one, wishbone, some kind of bone).

Hard to prepare week to week.

15-20 passes a game to go with it.

And yes, you have to recruit a specific type of linemen to run it effectively.

Charlie T.

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Chris Graham on UVA Football

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My first instinct here: please, god, no!

I remember telling my wife about Tony Bennett when he was hired: “His teams will score in the 40s and 50s, but they’ll win.”

And then her saying back to me: “Are you going to like watching that kind of basketball?”

Me: “As long as they win.”

OK, but I’m not sure I’m willing to go there with a triple-option team.

But I have to concede, there’s something to what Charlie T. is saying here.

Thinking back to when Paul Johnson was running the triple-option at Georgia Tech, the challenge for opponents was, you’ve got (usually) one week to prepare for the one team all year that you will face that runs that kind of offense.

The advantage Johnson had: his guys ran the offense all year – all spring, all through training camp, all regular season.

Everything is different about how opponents have to approach defending against it.

And from a recruiting standpoint, everything is different about how you build your offense.

We’ve already had guys who would have been interesting in an option offense – think: Marques Hagans, Jameel Sewell, Vic Hall, Bryce Perkins, Keytaon Thompson.

There are lots of these guys coming out of the preps each year who end up getting overlooked by Power 5 schools because nobody in Power 5 runs the triple option.

Virginia is never going to get the classic 6’4” pocket passer Heisman candidate.

We’d have our pick of the best option QBs each year.

The linemen, as Charlie T. alludes, are different, too. Instead of size, you’re looking for mobility.

At receiver, you want size guys and burners who can block on the edges.

And then you recruit the hell out of running backs.

Everything else about roster construction flows naturally – on defense, on special teams.

You do have to factor in how you put together a scout team so that your defense can prepare for opponents who run pro-style and the various spreads.

This would seem to be the most difficult part to going triple-option with the base offense.

Whoever the coach that would be brought in to install an option offense as the base would already know what to do there.

So, yeah, I see the point to what Charlie T. is saying here.

Going triple-option would be akin to going mover-blocker and Pack-Line in hoops.

If the assumption is that you can’t beat the other guys at their game, you figure out a way to redefine the game so that they have to beat you at yours.

I’m not sure I want to have to become an expert in analyzing the triple-option, but then, OK, as long as they win, you know …