Tag: triple option

Kliff Kingsbury offers hilariously sarcastic way for Commanders to avoid 2nd-half slump

Kliff Kingsbury’s got jokes.

For the first half of this season, the Washington Commanders were breaking offensive records. Rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels looked like the next NFL superstar but over the last few weeks, the offense hasn’t been as dominant.

There are reasons. Daniels suffered a rib injury in the Week 7 win over Carolina, missed some critical practice time, and has been less sharp in recent weeks. The Commanders have also played a more difficult schedule, facing two of the NFL’s top defenses in the past two games.

Others believe Washington’s recent offensive slowdown is due to teams figuring out offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury. In his history at Texas Tech and with the Arizona Cardinals, some of Kingsbury’s teams haven’t been as effective in the second half of seasons.

Context is required, though. Kingsbury’s teams sometimes had terrible defenses or injuries, particularly at quarterback. Regardless, there is a bit of a trend.

Kingsbury met with the media on Thursday and was asked about those trends. He said he has no plans to break those trends, and he’d need to see “what years” the offensive declines occurred.

He then offered a solution.

“I was thinking about doing triple option,” Kingsbury said. “We’re going to do what we do.”

We think Kingsbury was joking, but no offensive coordinator in the NFL has been more creative this season. In looking at Washington’s offense the past few weeks, Kingsbury’s schemes and play-calling have not been the problem. It’s been the execution.

Don’t be surprised if the Commanders run the triple option on a play or two this week, either.

 

 

 

Five keys to a Wisconsin victory over Army on Saturday

Five keys to a Wisconsin victory over Army on Saturday

The Wisconsin Badgers and Army Golden Knights are only three nights away from setting the clocks back and giving football fans a taste of what the sport was like before passing was considered normal.

Will it be extremely high-scoring? No. Will it please football fans who love huge plays and long touchdowns? Definitely not.

But it will reflect football at its core: a physical, strategic game where every play is a small war.

Related: The most important and unbelievable stats heading into Wisconsin’s matchup with Army

After shaking off mistakes and dominating last weekend, here is what Wisconsin will need to do on Saturday to come away with a victory:

Film room: What exactly will Wisconsin’s defense be up against on Saturday?

Film room: What exactly will Wisconsin’s defense be up against on Saturday?

Wisconsin’s game on Saturday might send the older football fan back to the days before the forward pass was considered normal.

The Badgers are set to face off against the Army Black Knights—one of the only teams that still run the old-school triple-option offense.

Army enters the contest with a 4-1 record on the season thanks to wins against Georgia State, Western Kentucky, UConn and Miami (Ohio). They do so scoring more than 34 points per game…but only throwing the ball 5-7 times.

The triple-option is a ground-based attack designed to catch defenders out of position and slowly and methodically march down the field.

So, here is what Wisconsin fans can expect to see on Saturday. It is a beautiful football attack that requires intense planning and discipline to stop.

The Army quarterback has three options, hence the term ‘triple-option.’ There’s the initial handoff to the halfback, an available toss or a quarterback run.

But Army also runs more traditional downhill run plays out of similar pre-snap looks in order to keep the defense off guard. The changes are minute, but they completely alter what defenders see from the offensive linemen and quarterback on the play.

Army does a great job of changing the tempo of the plays (sometimes the outside toss is thrown immediately) and changing how the offensive line executes its attack on the defense. They operate well when it’s a guessing game on defense, and when some of their options are so successful that they open up others.

Wisconsin should be well-equipped to stop the Army attack thanks to a dominant front seven, intelligent and athletic linebackers and a defensive coordinator in Jim Leonhard that has had this game on his mind for months.

But the question must be asked, how many forward passes will we see attempted on Saturday?

Army averages 6.6 per game, Wisconsin averages 28 (19.5 in its two victories).

My non-scientific over/under is 25. Make of that whatever you wish.

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