Sparrow is right. This can't be so difficult to pick up that it materially detracts from practicing anything else that's in any way important.

Asking us casual observers what to practice less of us lacks logic...We don't now know what they practice and we don't coach the team so are not charged with specific planning. Ain't our responsib. But it is that of the coaches. MACC.


The thought that some percentage of other teams which use the pistol never go under center is the wrong perspective. It's about doing what works, about getting a MACC, about becoming indeniable--it's not about doing what everyone else does.

I rarely resort to quoting myself, but I will do so here. The only people that are clearly wrong are those that think that they can just add under center plays without devoting significant practice time to perfecting snaps directly to the QB. They make the erroneous assumption that "everyone knows how to do that". I believe Pruehs was cited as saying he had never done one since 9th or 10th grade, and for Maxwell it was the same.

Let's guess that they spent 10% of their practice time in the Spring working on this. That's time they couldn't spend working on something else. Whatever time they spent was clearly not enough, because when they tried to actually use the formation in the scrimmage, they repeatedly fumbled the snaps. Thus, this Fall they will have to either abandon it, or put more time into working on this. I have no idea whether they will consider the direct snaps to have been a failed experiment, or whether they will continue to work on them in the Fall. I certainly hope they won't try to use it in games unless they can use it without a high risk of fumbling.

Again, BTC argued that the main reason why most college teams never go under center is that it takes significant practice time to get it right. I was skeptical at the time, but Spring practice has proven him to be correct.

Perhaps, we should all, myself included, invest in classes from CoachTube.com to thus help the Ohio Football program solve this perplexing dilemma. What it hints at to me is that Ohio once again lacks the kind of skill players needed to make the shotgun work, and that Frank would just prefer to stop playing games and lead with what is a consistent strength with the Ohio offense: running. Combine that with a brutal defense and the hope is that we can just wear people down. There is such a thing as a five foot drop in football, which, yes, would allow us to continue to work on a passing game as well, but I suspect that such a device as well would take valuable time away from...practicing exactly what? I, for one, would like to see Frank have the daring to bring back the Wishbone Formation; perhaps, he could even sneak himself in for a play or two.

No, Monroe, I'm not saying they should discard it. I'm saying that it takes work to get it right. They have done some work, but not enough, obviously. The fact that it takes work to get it right was Billy's original point. You don't just go out and line up and have it run right.