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Is Malzahn's offensive look and scheme from last year his offense in its truest form? I watched the 2010 SECCG yesterday because I'm AUBsessed, and you could tell it was a Gus offense obviously. It was a good bit different and more pass oriented than this past year.

Malzahn typically is between 55-60% run and 40-45% pass with his offense, so last year wasn't anywhere close to his truest offense. The main thing that makes Gus's offense really hard to stop is having a QB that can hit the deep routes effectively. Unfortunately Gus has only had that in 2010.

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Is it safe to assume Gus won't entirely ditch that triple-option bonanza, but use more of that high flying spread eagle that wrecked shite so much in 2010? Nick Marshall has 1 year under the system so I'm guessing his experience should open up the playbook, as with any QB who goes through a season and experiences the rigors of adversity and having to make big time plays in big games.

Yep, it's safe to assume that. And yes the playbook will be much more pass oriented this year with Marshall having a second year of experience and having a second really good WR to pair with Coates in Duke Williams.

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then when Gus has THE qb that he wants, will the offense have a slight shift to accommodate his strengths?

One of Gus's biggest strengths is adapting his offense to accommodate his QB's strengths. Main reason he scrapped the passing game last year was due to Marshall failing to be consistent passing, so after the first half of the LSU game we just started pounding the rock and passing 10 times a game rather than 20-25. This year you'll see us passing 20 times a game I'm sure.

But the difference between a very good Gus offense and a great Gus offense all comes down to a QB that came hit the deep and intermediate routes. People can talk about the gimmick and fast paced stuff all they want, but what makes the offense good is him being able to pound the rock with the wing T formations and force the safeties up, which allows him to destroy with the pass once he gets one on one matchups.

We've only really had that for about half of one year in 2010 once Cam really got comfortable throwing the ball. So yeah, we get a decent passing QB for multiple seasons our offense will be different.