re: Wishbone Offense: When do you remember last seeing it in CFB/NFL?

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But like others have said, major programs won’t run it again because of the NFL and recruiting.

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They don't run it because there's way too much team speed on today's defenses and it's also not the most efficient way to run an option offense these days.

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Matt Jones could shoot through a 3 foot gap and be gone in that offense. The wishbone truly spread out a defense to the horizontal. However, could Matt Jones take the helmets to the chin and sternum that he would have to take from a DE or OLB making that last second pitch to his HB for the corner?

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Good question.

But if he was willing to take that kind of abuse - can you imagine the kind of havoc Arky could have wreaked with a backfield of Jones, Jones, McFadden, and Hillis...and Marcus Monk catching the 5 or 6 passes they would throw per game...

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Defenses obviously caught up with it.The same as the Power I and Veer

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The powerhouses that ran the wishbone won with it right up until the point they ditched it. Kind of weird when I think about it. No one caught up to the wishbone in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

Miami did great against Oklahoma in the 80s too

Texas ran it for opening play to honor Darrel Royal when he died in 2012.

Very cool.

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Is that why Oklahoma won a national title in '85 and finished in the top 2-3 in '86-'87? They sure didn't struggle with the wishbone in the '80s.

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Sooo, why did they stop running it?What changed?

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Is that why Auburn finished 11-1 in '83 and probably should have won the national title?

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Is that why they stopped running it in '85?

Geez,I said defenses "evolved in the 80's"
I didn't say it changed over night and by the end of the eighties the wishbone was pretty much dead.

What's so difficult to understand?

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Jesus. So the standard for having a good offensive system is being able to move the ball at will against Miami in the mid '80s? How many teams were doing that?

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It was an example of team speed on defense catching up to the wishbone and Miami was one of best and first examples defenses evolving in that time period. That philosophy changed the way CFB played defense.

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Even other under center option teams (though not wishbone teams) like Notre Dame, Colorado and Nebraska continued to win big from the late '80s to the mid '90s based out of the I.

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I also said the wishbone died because there were more efficient option offenses that developed.

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Five national titles (with other near misses) were won from '88-'97 by three different teams that ran a steady dose of option from at least two back sets.

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Were we not SPECIFICALLY talking about the
wishbone offense? No idea why you can't grasp this.

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Sooo, why did they stop running it?What changed?

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Barry Switzer left and the Sooners sucked for about the next ten years.

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Is that why they stopped running it in '85?

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Perhaps to feature Bo Jackson more, as players are a helluva lot more more important than schemes.

Auburn was 20-5 in its last two years running the wishbone. I would call that successful.

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I didn't say it changed over night and by the end of the eighties the wishbone was pretty much dead.

What's so difficult to understand?

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The key practitioners of the wishbone offense (like Bryant, Royal, Switzer, etc.) had retired by the late '80s, but they were all successful with it until the end.

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It was an example of team speed on defense catching up to the wishbone and Miami was one of best and first examples defenses evolving in that time period. That philosophy changed the way CFB played defense.

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Miami had extraordinary athletes and went about ten years without losing a game to any team (regardless of their offense) in the Orange Bowl, where Oklahoma had to play them twice. Switzer was 33-0 against the rest of college football from '85-'87.

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I also said the wishbone died because there were more efficient option offenses that developed.

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Switzer's teams had their way with Osborne's I based option in the '70s and '80s, winning a significant majority of the time with roughly equal talent.

Osborne didn't start winning big in the '90s because his offensive scheme was better or significantly different than before. He just had better players running it. His defenses also became speedier and that helped him better defend passing teams than they did in previous years.

Guess what? Superior defensive speed and athleticism hurts any offense, not just the wishbone.

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Were we not SPECIFICALLY talking about the
wishbone offense? No idea why you can't grasp this.

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Oklahoma was the last blue blood to run the wishbone and was 42-6 with a national championship in the last four years running it. I think most programs would take that.

Okay, school's out.

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Do you expect wishbone teams to win every game 35-0?

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God almighty,when was this ever stated?

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It was a close 20-18 loss by Auburn

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AU was ranked #1 going against a defense that had lost 9 starters
and had one of their worst rushing performances '84.

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God almighty,when was this ever stated?

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Your criteria for an offense being effective is apparently that it had to have been better than Miami’s defense in the mid / late ‘80s, which no other offense was on a year to year basis. That’s a high standard.

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AU was ranked #1 going against a defense that had lost 9 starters
and had one of their worst rushing performances '84.

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So what? Auburn scored 42 on FSU that year after they beat Miami 38-3. Teams have good and bad games.

The bottom line is the last wishbone teams at the big-time college level were strong. It’s not accurate to say “defenses caught up to them” just because they struggled to beat Miami, which didn’t score a whole lot in those matchups either because the wishbone teams were good on defense too.

And in defense of Oklahoma and Nebraska (even though they weren’t a wishbone team) if all those all those ‘80s and ‘90s Orange Bowls had been played in dead winter in Norman or Lincoln I bet the outcome might have been different a time or two.

Must be nice to play a bowl game for a national championship in your home stadium.

That's basically what happened to LSU's defense on the second half in Oxford last season