Monday, May 6, 2013

The Birthplace of the Pistol: 2013 Nevada Spring Game



While in Reno for the California State Athletic Director's Association yearly conference (yes, a state conference was held outside of the state), some of our coaching staff took the time to take in the Nevada spring game and get an up close and personal view of where the Pistol began.

Traditionally, we have been a flexbone, inside veer/midline team that also got into shotgun, predominantly to throw the ball. One problem we consistently ran into was a lack of a similar running game out of shotgun.

Now, we are going to begin infusing a Pistol look as our base backfield set. We will be able to keep the rest of the offense pretty similar, but will have to re-tool the mesh and steps for the QB, fullbacks and slotbacks.

Leading up to the game I read a fair amount of local newspaper articles and new Head Coach Brian Polian noted that they would be pretty vanilla on both sides of the ball as not to give anything away for their opening game.

Nevada used 11's personnel and this look A LOT!


Some quick things I took from the Wolf Pack Spring Game:

#1 - Nevada lived in 11's (1-back, 1-TE) personnel. They moved their H-back/TE around a lot pre snap with different motions and he was always on the move post snap, crossing the formation to kick out a DE or lead up on a LB.
#2 - Different plays looked extremely similar from a big picture standpoint. This constantly put the DE's in conflict. Nevada primarily ran inside zone, Power and a Power Read.

Count the numbers... How do you not run some sort of option football?

#3 - Their biggest play was consistently the Power Read. especially when their athletic QB pulled the ball and got to the perimeter.
#4 - Offensive linemen splits differed throughout the game. I'm sure this is an adaptation to the play call. The guard-to-center split varied from about one to three feet and the guard-to-tackle split varied from about two to three feet.
#5 - I was impressed with how well the defense tackled throughout the game. They were extremely effective in open field situations.