Building blocks of X's and O's: The spread-option offense
Running option plays from the shotgun has come to dominate college offense and been a major differentiation in styles of play between college and the NFL.
The Texas Longhorns didn’t commit all-in on playing out of the shotgun until 2005, which proved to be the final year Vince Young spent in college before winning the National Championship and entering the NFL Draft.
Playing fully out of the shotgun spread wasn’t something most of the big programs were doing. Even the Air Raid 2000 Oklahoma Sooners still got under center some, although they were one of the first predominantly shotgun spread teams amongst the blue bloods of college football. The Sooners didn’t go to the shotgun for the reason it became ubiquitous across college football though.
The first example isn’t even the “zone-read” play that Vince Young make help introduce to everyone in 2005 but simply a zone play run from a 4-wide spread alignment. The Wolverines were too spread out (and slow) to get defenders to the right gaps and gave up 300+ rushing yards on the day.
The second example is more of a classic option play but from the shotgun. The ability to leave the end unblocked to read conveyed obvious value. Allowing the quarterback to sit back and see things from the gun while making reads has transformed the game.
Since those days, the world of shotgun option, spread plays has expanded wildly. I don’t think we can cover it all today, but we’ll summarize three major pieces of offense that combine spread spacing, the shotgun alignment, and option football.