Georgia incorporated the pistol set into its offense last season and one thing Aaron Murray said he wants to work on this offseason is his running. Both are good reasons to take a look at this interview with Chris Ault, the father of the pistol (h/t Chase Stuart), about the success San Francisco is having with the pistol this season using Ault’s former quarterback, Colin Caepernick Kaepernick.
Tell me this doesn’t sound like something Bobo could cobble together with existing personnel:
… Everybody thinks the pistol is just a read, but the pistol is a formation. And from that formation, if you’re a power offense, you can run the power. If you’re a counter offense, you can run the counter. It’s not just a read offense. I think the read offers another dimension to it, but it’s really a versatile formation.
Q: How similar is what you did at Nevada to what Chip Kelly is doing at Oregon?
Ault: Chip and those guys, they have the back offset. He’s not behind the quarterback. So their first base play is an outside zone play, a sweep-type action. Whereas our first base play is an inside zone and that sets up the read and the play-action pass off it. Really two different offenses, Chip’s and ours.
Ault believes a little bit of read goes a long way towards helping the play-action, and vice versa.
… I’m not here to tell you that the 49ers should run the read 16, 17 times a game. You can’t do that in the NFL. But I think by running the read play, it’s in your offensive system and you’re going to run it five times, nine times a game, it’s one more thing you’ve got to defend. And then when you throw the play-action pass off it, that’s another thing. So it’s not just one dimension that you’ve got to look at, it’s a couple of things. You see Kaep run that 56-yard touchdown, and you say, great, that’s the read option. And it is great. But I think one of the things that set that up was a couple of the play-action passes out of the pistol.
Gurshall and Murray on the read option three or four times a game. Tantalizing, no?
Get The Picture 
It is tantalizing.
One option that Bobo will have when using the pistol is to insert Faton Bauta as the triggerman. When Murray runs the read/option it amounts to a handoff – for good reasons. With Bauta there will be an actual read and real options, including passing.
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Changing QBs would telegraph the play though.
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Tell that to the National Championship Florida won in 2007 telegraphing with Tebow.
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It would unless Bauta can throw. If he can, they can’t load the box against the run.
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Murray has said he intends to work on his run game and we know he can be real accurate when he is on. Bauta averaged nearly 15 yards a carry but didn’t get nearly the reps at qb that Murray enjoyed in HS. If there are two coaches that can coach a college quarterback they are CMR and CMB. QB is all about the reps and hopefully Bauta is getting some. He’s got heart that is for certain.
FYI
http://blogs.palmbeachpost.com/highschoolbuzz/2011/11/30/dwyer-coach-jack-daniels-talks-georgia-commit-faton-bauta-st-thomas-aquinas/
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Senator I know you’re a huge NFL fan and all (sarcasm) but I think it’s Colin Kaepernick
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And the only reason I know this is I recently looked it up for a text message because I had no idea how to spell his last name, haha
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That’s what I get for focusing on getting the “ae” part right. 😉
Thanks for the catch.
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I hate that play. It won’t be very long before defenses snuff that mess out, juts like they did the Wildcat, and juts like Aaron Rodgers says.
Aaron Murray better work on his quicks and his bigs if he is going to run that, or we’re going to be holding our breath every time he does.
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“juts”. Kinda like the soudn of that.
🙂
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The point isn’t to run it like a bread and butter play, a la Corch, but to offer it as a change up a few times a game.
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I would like to see Marshall take the snap with Gurley behind him. Defensive end either has to collapse on the power or stay wide on the speed.
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I thought we could have used it a couple times this year in situations where we were trying to milk clock. Best example I can think of was against UT. We’re trying to milk clock, UT is selling out on the run, and we couldn’t get anything.
What if Murray pulled the ball and took off? If there’s nothing there, he slides to avoid the hit and the play has the same effect. If it works like I think it would have, we convert a 1st down and take some of the drama out of that game in particular.
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Maybe CMR has taken the training wheels off of Bobo and is letting him spread his wings.
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i think the training wheel came off the o-line, not Bobo.
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We finally have all the pieces of the offense working so they can try new things. The injuries on the line have held us back.
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injuries DBA lack of depth.
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One other thing I daydream about Richt and Bobo studying up on: the no-huddle two TE and two-back looks the Pats have used the past 2 seasons.
Then I imagine them mixing those concepts in with a Nevada/49ers-style pistol offense, with a side of good old pro set and power-I, and the nightmares defensive coordinators would have dealing with all of it.
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I like your dreams.
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This may have been a condition for Aaron Murray returning. Well, not condition… That is too strong a word. Aaron doesn’t strike me as the kind of kid who would make “conditions.”
But perhaps he had discussions with CMR and CMB and they discussed that he would need to show off some run skills if he hoped to get a high draft pick. He needs something to offset the height issue and the perception that he can’t win big games.
If he adds some running to his game and wins some big games (like a national title) I think he could move up to the 1st round or high 1st round. The success of Kap and RG3 have definitely set things up for GMs to look for their own version in the draft soon.
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