This week, in response to Raza Rasheed's column ("Success is Optional," Oct. 6) in the Opinion section last week, I've decided to enlist the help of Tim Dolan '11 to help me rank: The Five Reasons A Triple-Option Offense Is a Terrible Idea.
-
Possession Rasheed claims that the triple-option offense would help Dartmouth maintain possession during the game, which would benefit the team because it wouldn't have to throw in the bad weather up in Hanover, and because Dartmouth would be able to keep the clock running and keep the defense off the field. Those are pretty interesting ideas, except how is pitching a ball in the rain any easier than throwing it? The Big Green would just be trading interceptions for fumbles. Besides, what football team plans an entire offensive scheme around potential weather hazards? As to the question of keeping the clock running, that's what the team is already trying to do with its running game. How would Dartmouth be able to keep possession and keep the clock running more effectively by implementing a turnover-prone offense with more complicated blocking schemes, when it already has so much trouble implementing a standard, simple run game?
-
Speed For an option offense to be successful, a team needs speed. Dartmouth would need a fast quarterback we don't have one. More importantly, Dartmouth's linemen would need to be extremely fast in order to pull 30 times a game and get out of the tackle box quickly enough to let the speed of the backs be effective. We have none of those things, because Dartmouth doesn't recruit athletes of that caliber. The reason that the triple option worked for the United States Naval Academy was because the players' collective job, outside of football, is to be the most athletically fit humans on the planet. We don't have that. Plus, Navy had Paul Johnson, possibly the greatest innovator of the option offense. Dartmouth definitely doesn't have that. Opposing defenses would simply stack the box on the Big Green and stop the option cold.
-
Line Rasheed said that the option offense "forces opposing defensive linemen to move laterally on virtually every play, often tiring them as the game wears on and exposing them to mistakes due to their lack of familiarity with the system." Coincidentally, who else gets tired in an option offense? That's right, the offensive linemen. Our offensive linemen have made great strides this year, but they would need to be in ridiculous shape to be able to sprint to the outside on every play in time to beat the defense. Plus, the complex blocking schemes would confuse our linemen as much as the unfamiliar system would confuse the opposing team's defensive line. Which segues beautifully into:
-
Implementation Disregarding the specific limitations of the option offense itself, making that large of a change in the offensive scheme is generally an unnecessary move that would be detrimental to the team. Switching mid-season would be absurd. Switching next year would simply set the team back several steps. The younger classes of recruits at this school actually have a lot of talent completely switching the offensive scheme now, when they are starting to become familiar with it, would just cause the team to regress another three years. Implementing an option offense takes years to gain the right execution what Rasheed is arguing for is to implement a long-term change as a quick fix, and for what? To gain fans in the short run? Which brings me to my final point:
-
An Exciting' Team Despite the recent, fairly horrendous losing streak, Dartmouth is still a Division I football school with a long and reputable tradition. That is why I find Rasheed's argument that "it's time to embrace more entertaining, if unusual, remedies," that the team must "play in a style exciting enough to energize the fan base and restore its home field advantage," to be not only ludicrous but insulting. In any sport, offensive or defensive schemes are created for one purpose: winning.
No athletic team, especially an amateur team, should focus on pleasing fans instead of winning. That is unprofessionalism at its height. The Big Green could also run a five-wide spread every single play and bomb the ball down the field, but it wouldn't win that way either, as entertaining as it would be.
This isn't NFL Blitz. Good teams are exciting, no matter what their scheme is. Bad teams are not.
The Harlem Globetrotters aim to please a lot of fans, but I don't think anybody wants Dartmouth football to turn into the Globetrotters.Besides, we're a lot more like the Washington Generals, anyway.
