Triple option, Toledo offense, and Mariano Rivera

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jpswensen
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Triple option, Toledo offense, and Mariano Rivera

Post by jpswensen » October 3rd, 2016, 2:56 pm

The New York Times probably has the best digital media graphics department in the country. When in grad school, I once went to a seminar by their project lead and was awed by how much data they sift through and how many meetings go into devising the best way of presenting that data.

I remember one of my favorite digital graphics presentations they have made was near the end of Mariano Rivera's career, trying to explain why he has been such a great pitcher (see http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/magaz ... gewanted=1 and the associated video at http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010 ... tches.html). Apparently his trick is that many of his pitches have the exact same release point, the same apparent spin, and that the break doesn't happen until almost at the point the batter has to decide what pitch he threw.

As I was watching the Air Force game last week and the Toledo offense this week, it got me thinking about how the triple option and the Toledo offense exploit the exact same principle. Both offenses seem to only have 2 or 3 formations and every play can evolve from those same basic formations. In contrast, it seems that with the USU offense that you can almost certainly predict the play that USU will run from the pre-snap formation.

For those of you that know more about football & coaching than I do, how big of an impact does the up-front formation and later adaptation have on taking the defense by surprise? Just as in the case of Mariano Rivera, it seems that it would be a big advantage. I guess the other problem is that you need to have a QB who makes good decisions on which option to take post-snap, which may take special players like the Toledo QB and the discipline of a military academy.


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brian5562
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Re: Triple option, Toledo offense, and Mariano Rivera

Post by brian5562 » October 3rd, 2016, 3:26 pm

I always found it harder to prepare for teams that ran a ton of formations. It causes your defense to either think or substitute players or both.

If a team runs out of the same formation 70% of the time I felt my defenses could do things to get you out of your comfort zone. The gamble there is that it comes down to who executes better that day.

Toledo's qb understands the offense they run really well. He is patient and when the big play is there he goes after it. It is the same offense that Baylor runs and Skyridge High School in Lehi Utah runs it as well so I see it all the time.



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