The Bobcats have seen the spread option this season.
But not Gardner-Webb's spread option.
Toting the most interesting nickname on the Bobcats schedule, the Runnin' Bulldogs will come to Athens with more than just that, however. They'll bring a fast triple option attack.
“It’s disciplined football," defensive coordinator Jimmy Burrow said. "There’s a reason they call it the triple, and it all starts with the first component of that, the dive back. If you don’t stop him, then they just keep handing it to him. The disciplined people who are responsible for the dive should do that. Then you have people on the quarterback and people on the pitch.”
Gardner-Webb runs its offense out of the pistol offense, a variation of the shotgun.
“It’s a true triple, we haven’t really faced a true triple team yet," Burrow said. "Air Force, Navy components, that’s really what it is, they’re just not in the true wishbone, double slot look. In that regards it’s totally different.”
The triple option, run by service academy schools and Georgia Tech, is an offense designed to make the defense lose its assignments. The same play can be run three times in a row with a different player getting the ball each time.
The quarterback will read the defensive end, then either keep it himself or give it to a dive back up the middle. If the quarterback keeps it, he'll run the standard option with a running back, where it can be pitched to the running back or kept by the quarterback, hence the name triple option.
“You can’t let your eyes get lost, play disciplined, play your assignment, play what you see," defensive lineman Kevin Robbins said. "If everyone does that, we’ll have some success.”
Robbins, who filled in for an injured Kurt Laseak last weekend at Tennessee, will likely see significant time again this weekend at defensive end. Robbins had three tackles.
“Everybody has to play disciplined and play their assignments," he said. "Play assignment football, that’s how you stop the option.”
The Bobcats will have a sizable gap in talent disparity this weekend, but that's certainly not the talk around the team, in fact, it's the opposite.
Ohio entered last weekend's game at Tennessee a 30-point underdog, so the Bobcats are no strangers to the underdog talk.
The Bobcats have not lost to an FCS school since 2002, when they lost to Northeastern 31-0.
"Gardner-Webb is going to come into here, just like we went into Tennessee, with a chip on their shoulder," offensive coordinator Tim Albin said. "We were 30-point favorites, our guys didn't take kindly to that. We're at Tennessee, they're us –– that's what we're telling our guys. We're going to have to play our best game against Gardner-Webb."
And if the Bobcats want to squash the underdog talk from the start, a lot of that will have to do with how they stop the triple option.
“(I’m) the guy they’re reading, so you’ve just got to make sure you’re playing your assignment," Robbins said. "That helps the other guys on the field with their assignment. It’s like a big puzzle, everybody has to put their pieces together.”
