Has everyone forgotten what Florida did in the 90's? They were putting up huge points with a pass first offense. I looked up the stats from UF's '96 team last night. They scored almost exactly the same amount of points that season (per game) as Bama did in 2020. Wuerffel threw like 2 fewer TD's than Jones with one less game played. (Jones' completion percentage was much better, though).

Or how about late 80's/early 90's Houston with the run and shoot putting up 70 and 80 points it seemed like every other week. Or late 90's Kentucky where the air-raid was pretty much invented. (They threw it even more than Spurrier).

From the mid 70's to mid 80's most teams ran the Wishbone or some other form of the TO. The ball might have been passed 10 times per game if you were lucky. The running back position was all the rage - everyone wanted a great one and RB's usually won the Heisman. From 1973 to 1985 a running back won the Heisman EVERY SEASON except for two.

But before the Wishbone, people were passing the ball more than they did during the triple-option years. It wasn't as much passing as today, but more than the TO years.

I think the difference between now and, say, the 90's is not the formations. People were running "spread" formations as far back as the 70's and Spurrier routinely ran spread formations in the 90's in the SEC. The spread itself was invented even a long time before the 70's (just not played at major colleges).

I think some of the issue is WR's don't have to pay like they used to. People used to get hit harder, but with targeting, that kinda went away. It's hard to put big hits on WR's because it's just too risky to do now.