By Kevin Figgers

A caller on the Petros and Money show this past Tuesday made an excellent point on the subject of offenses in college football. Over the last few decades college football has turned into an institution where the perceiveda uspiciousness of the “spread offense” has permeated every level of competition -  from BCS bottom feeders like Kentucky, to elite programs like Oregon and Ohio State. But one fact that I haven't heard mentioned from any of the pundits was the fact that it was a team that runs a “traditional” offense that wound up winning the the national championship.

Too often we get caught up in the “flavor of the month” or the newest innovation that gets fans out of their seats and analysts raving about how teams like Oregon are revolutionizing the game of college football with their unprecedented up-tempo style of offense. Now lets not get it twisted, Oregon is doing something that no other team has ever done (at least that I can remember), but I think sometimes it gets lost on fans that its still the game of football. Its still just 11 guys on both sides of the line of scrimmage with the more physical, better prepared and more disciplined team pulling out the victory more often than not, regardless of trickery or schematics.

As i’ve said plenty of times in the past, I’m not a traditionalist when it comes to most things. Im all for different uniforms, instant replay rules that get calls right, names of the backs of Notre Dame jerseys etc. But I will admit that I am a big fan of old school (I guess the cliché would be “smashmouth”) football. You know: line up with one tight end, a full back, a tailback and two wide receivers. You can probably count on one hand how many teams in both college and the NFL still play this “stoneaged” style of offensive football, yet each of them interestingly enough find themselves among their leagues elite more often than not.

Teams of this sort that immediately come to mind in college football would be Stanford, Alabama, and Florida. In the NFL you have teams like the Texans, Ravens, Seahawks, Vikings and 49ers. What do all ofthese teams have in common? They were either in the running for a national championship late in the season (or in Alabama's case actually WON the national championship), and as of this writing, 4 of the 5 NFL teams that I mentioned are still in the hunt for the Superbowl.

I’m not writing this to say that theres anything wrong with spread offenses and read-option attacks or anything of that nature. Every program runs the system they feel is best suited for them. I just felt it was necessary to bring attention to the fact that what has come to be known as “old school football” is still very much an effective way to win games. The notion that you HAVE to have multiple receiver sets and operate out of the shotgun 90 percent of the time just because its a “new era of football” and everyone else is doing it, is debunked every time teams like the Seahawks and Alabama defeat a team by 30 points by simply running the ball and taking shots downfield only when necessary. Did I mention that the inspiration behind this short blog, the Oregon Ducks, lost their only game of the season to a team that prides itself on running the ball and playing physical defense? Just a little something to think about.