Ok, I’m a Jolly Good Fellow, I’m a homer and I love Georgia Tech football’s  Wreckbone Option. I think it fits Tech (shoot, Homer Rice invented the concept) and it should be run at Tech long after I die. But how in the world do you defend it and why would I bother talking about how to defend it? Perhaps I know nothing of what I’m talking about so it doesn’t matter.  And/or regardless of what I say you can’t really defend it, unless of course I’m the greatest football mind on the planet who just happens to be stuck blogging about it.  My street cred for this post is that I played football for 14 years, 11 of those as an offensive lineman, 3 years as a center.  I played undersized, even for a high school lineman, and was used primarily to clear traps and isos and cut linebackers within the box.  I played under the Wing T, similar to Paul Johnson’s spread option veer in philosophy and alignment.  To this very day I love to watch offensive line play as a result of playing this system. Why? Because you can see Dwyer’s 80 yard run a split second before the 80 yard run, if that makes sense.  So, back to the point of the post,  how do you stop the triple option?

A disclaimer:  You don’t stop anything by hype, emotions, talking trash (ask Virginia Tech), or using cliches.  There is no DaVinci Code for defending the option, it doesn’t exist, never has, never will.  So you can let go of the fear of anyone figuring it out.  There is nothing to figure out, so please stop the foolishness about this offensive strategy not being able to work.

Now, first, to defend the triple option, you have to choose something that you’re going to try to take away.  There are proven ways to stop any part of the option using different approaches. For example; squeezing the four down, shooting backers, corners, or safeties.  The problem is it doesn’t take long for the offense to see what it is your attempting to take away, so adjustments are not really hard, which is partly why Paul Johnson looks like a genius. And he is for running this offense and being able to see this quickly and call a play to bring the defense back to honesty. So the first attempt to defend the option is to try to at least take something away.  Be good at something or you will bleed out fast from the daggers.  And that’s what this offense is, it isn’t a one hit wonder, not a guillotine, though it can be.  Its basic philosophy is to stab you with daggers in as many ways as possible, until you die. Slow or quick death, it matters not.

Second, one of the best ways to defend the option is to identify the weakest player involved in the option.  Usually for the teams I played on it was the B-back/Fullback, so defenses would focus on making sure that the B-back got the ball by giving the QB the read to give it to the B.  The problem is that by doing this, the defense was often willing to give up 4 yards in hopes that the offense would get tired of running the same play (something Paul Johnson never does) or make a mistake in running it.  A lot of defending the option on the high school level is about targeting weaker players and creating confusion so that that option is essentially stopped by the offense itself.  The problem with this philosophy in college is that there are star athletes at every position, smarter players are not as easily confused and mistakes are more rare.  Another reason why this system fits the Tech brand.

Third is what I believe to be the best option at defending the option and it has a little to do with strategy and a lot to do with skill.   The hardest blocking scheme for our Wing-T option was always against an alignment that used a really good, studly nose guard who would shade (meaning the nose would shade the center to one side or the other).

Let me give a personal example. I can remember like it was yesterday playing Wheeler High School.  I wasn’t a bad lineman in my day, if I can be so bold, I was captain of our team and all county center two years running.  I thought I was the man in those days and I loved cutting linebackers, which was my job a lot of the times when defenses didn’t play a nose.  However, Wheeler played a shaded nose, and this MAN that I played against absolutely kicked my rear for four quarters.  He wasn’t a typical NFL nose, fat space eater.  He was a 275 pound, 10% body fat, agile as a mouse, one man wrecking machine.  I don’t remember his name, but he has to playing in the NFL somewhere today.  Anyway, he shaded me the whole game forcing me out of my own strength (cutting backers) and  into trying to set the hip block and then hope for help in moving him out of the zone.  However, you could not double team this animal and he was able to single-handedly defend the dive, trap, and iso, forcing us to attack the corners which they could use other personnel to defend because we couldn’t get to the backers to cut.  Needless to say our potent offense was stymied that night and Wheeler crushed us.  And that is how you defend the option, with superior talent on the defensive line, particularly a nose who can’t be doubled or stopped from wreaking havoc in the backfield.

When you look at Georgia Tech games in which the offense has struggled a bit, you will either see self-inflicted wounds or a superior defensive line usually attacking at the nose and causing havoc at the mesh.  So there it is, the blueprint for stopping the option.  Good luck!

An old coach once told us, “it’s football, it comes down to leverage.” The triple option, as with any offensive strategy, is simply about finding the leverage over the defense.  I know it’s cliched, but it really is about taking what the defense is giving.  What is surprising is how much college defenses are giving up to the option, almost everything. I believe coordinators are falsely assuming that their talent is so much better than Tech’s that this factor alone can stop the option.  That logic isn’t completely flawed, however, Tech is using brains and leverage to overcome superior talent up front, and it is downright scary to think about how much more leverage Tech might have once their best offensive lineman isn’t a former walk-on.  Not to mention a true option QB.  This is why there is justifiable hope again on The Flats. Our hope isn’t in alignment of planets, polls, or marketed images. Nor should our fear be in someone finally “figuring it out.”   The Wreckbone Option is a proven system and so is the leader of such a system.  We have the supreme Jedi master of the option, there is nothing Paul Johnson hasn’t seen in 20+ years of running this thing, so in other words, you don’t surprise Yoda. And I’m glad Yoda is wearing the White and Gold.

(Yes Coach Johnson, I’m available for an interview and I still can do “bird dog” in my sleep.)