The gimmick offense topic used to come up about how it could never win a national championship. I would definitely consider Oregon's offense gimmicky. Auburn's is less gimmicky, but it still has some gimmickness. I really believe the gimmick offenses have surrounded themselves with decent defenses.

Three yards and a cloud of dust are gone. The run and shoot had its day. Option football (older Nebraska, Oklahoma teams) seems almost dead.

Are the only systems left to win titles Pro style and hurry up spread gimmick?

Wisconsin is about the closest thing to 3 yards and a cloud of dust anymore.

Watching this game tonight is almost like watching basketball. Bunch of turnovers and running up and down the field.

Oregon throwing lots of screens at the aggressive defensive front of Auburn. That's not gimmicky.

I still have no idea what a it means when a team has a "gimmick offense." The term just doesn't make sense.

ccrunner609;633159 wrote:its more a zone read that is gimmicky if anything.

While these teams do run a lot of zone read, RichRod is really the only one that runs the zone read as his base offense. It's more of a spread option, that runs the zone read a lot, whereas for RichRod almost every running play is a zone read. It's almost the veer.

Go find the gimmick offense thread from about 2 months ago. I argued enough about what was and wasn't on that thread to cover this one.

Its only gimmicky because teams didn't run the spread while going go huddle back in the "olden days". Some people are just resistant to change and think that anything that is different is "bad"

ccrunner609;633159 wrote:its more a zone read that is gimmicky if anything.

You did see how many times the zone read was blown up tonight. If the guy you're reading is so fast that you don't have enough time to "read", then BOOM. Option offenses have been "reading" the end guy(D-lineman or LB) for decades, you have plenty of time to "read" him, but REALLY reading an inside guy on the D-line can be problematic against fast and powerful guys blowing off the line of scrimmage instead of reading keys.

In my opinion a "gimmick" offense is an offense that relies too heavily on one player or requires a "certain type of player" that, if placed in a more traditional style of offense, would be a poor fit, ala denard.

So is the triple option a gimmick offense then?

More often than not, you make that QB pass, and he will fail because they don't do it that often.

I think Oregon gimmicked themselves out of a National Championship last night. Sure they had to change a few things offensively to play against Auburn but every other play was a bubble screen or something run out of that two back set with a WR motioned into the backfield. However, when they threw the ball downfield they were successful.

I know we can argue until we are blue in the face that 1. Auburn's D line didn't give them time to throw downfield all night. 2. They (Oregeon) needed to attack Auburn with an unconventional game plan.

When it became crunch time Auburn on offense went back to what they have done all year, a nice mixture of runs and passes.

All last night showed was how pathetic Pac10 defenses are...again...

the only reason I would consider Oregon's offense "gimmick" is because they operate purly on rythmn. It was obvious that There was nothing they could do when Auburn's d-line was disrupting that. Sure they ran screens,but didn't have much of anything else it seemed. Seemed it was either their pace or nothing. That's why a good offense can do anything. You want to try to slow down my pace, ok, let's run power o, you willing to let us speed up? ok, we are going deep every play and wear you out.

Oregon got exposed -- again.

Two years in a row they face a very tough defense in the bowl game and both times they lose.

I don't believe that's a coincidence.

Also, the Oregon coach is an idiot for not taking points when he was in the Red Zone and had a fourth down. If he'd done that, it would have forced Auburn to score a TD on the final drive, instead of a field goal, to win. Yes, they might well have won, anyway, but leaving points on the field like that can come back to kill you.

I and lots of other OSU fans bitch a lot about how JT is too quick to take field goals over TDs, but our real complaint is the lack of creative play calling when they get in the Red Zone, more than settling for FGs.

In any case, those two Red Zone chances for Oregon where they got zero points (an INT and the fourth down stop) cost them the game.

By the way, I think the Oregon offense last season was better. Especially at QB.

Writerbuckeye;634107 wrote:Oregon got exposed -- again.

Two years in a row they face a very tough defense in the bowl game and both times they lose.

I don't believe that's a coincidence.

Also, the Oregon coach is an idiot for not taking points when he was in the Red Zone and had a fourth down. If he'd done that, it would have forced Auburn to score a TD on the final drive, instead of a field goal, to win. Yes, they might well have won, anyway, but leaving points on the field like that can come back to kill you.

I and lots of other OSU fans bitch a lot about how JT is too quick to take field goals over TDs, but our real complaint is the lack of creative play calling when they get in the Red Zone, more than settling for FGs.

In any case, those two Red Zone chances for Oregon where they got zero points (an INT and the fourth down stop) cost them the game.

By the way, I think the Oregon offense last season was better. Especially at QB.

Auburn's defense was very middle of the pack overall. Their D-Line was able to completely disrupt the rythmn of the zone read though, which threw the whole Oregon offense off.

Middle of the pack statistically yes, but play against better offenses in the SEC I would realistically rate them above average. Point is I guess is that these offenses haven't done all that well against average to above average defenses, and worse against good defenses.

Auburn struggled against teams who could pass. Their front seven and their depth on the d-line is better than almost every team in the nation.

Unfortunately for Oregon, they can't line up and throw the ball consistently. They had many chances but Thomas had at least half-a-dozen throws that he missed or were dropped. The reason he was efficient with his final numbers is because 2/3 of his completed passes were screens or passes under 5 yards.

That d-line also stuffed the read-option all night which is pretty much what Oregon bases their offense out of.