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Nevada's Pistol on display at Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl
By Morris Phillips January 7, 2011 |
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Chris Ault had already cemented his well-earned reputation as the architect of University of Nevada football when retired in 1995. So when he surprised everyone at the university he’s never left, by coming out of retirement to resume his position as head football coach in 2004, at age 58, he needed a new title, a new challenge. In the spring of 2005, Ault found what he was looking for, and he called it the Pistol. At first his invention seemed like the workings of old, crazy man. “My staff looked at me and I know they all decided to get their resumes ready,” Ault recalled. “They were thinking, “This guy’s off. They really did.” Under Ault, Nevada had always employed an effective passing game that allowed them to overwhelm the opposition in 1-AA level, where they made seven playoff appearances in the 80’s and early 90’s. When Nevada made the transition to what is now known as Division I in 1992, Ault started to rethink his philosophy, as he begin to understand that no team could win big at the highest levels of college football without a superior running attack. When Ault retired from coaching, becoming the school’s athletic director, he became a student of different football philosophies, studying and conferring with other coaches at various coaching clinics around the country. A year after returning to the sidelines, he was ready to institute his new found strategies under a new, radical hybrid. “I wanted to get the quarterback off the line of scrimmage, but I didn’t want it to be a shotgun. We can get play-action passes and still run north-south,” Ault said. In the pistol offense, the quarterback lines up three yards behind center receiving the ball in a similar fashion to a shotgun attack. But with the quarterback closer to the line of scrimmage, the running back lines up directly behind the signal caller, where the quarterback would be—seven yards back—in a traditional shotgun. This allows the quarterback to make quick reads—run or pass—with an emphasis on running straight ahead—east, west—by both the quarterback and running back. And in the last two years, with 6’6” quarterback Colin Kaepernick and 5’9” running back Vai Taua, the offense has become a record breaker. Two years ago, Kaepernick, Taua and Luke Lippincott became the first trio on one team to each rush for 1,000 yards in a season. Kaepernick, a fifth-year senior, enters Sunday night’s Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl against Boston College, with over 9,000 yards passing and 4,000 yards rushing in his college career. The yardage totals Kaepernick has amassed running and passing are a first at the NCAA level. And as Cal, who lost to Nevada earlier this year, 52-31, and other teams can explain, this offense is just plain hard to stop, especially with the accurate throwing of Kapernick along with his great foot speed in the run game with Taua’s hard running thrown in. One of the keys this year is the stout Taua is hard to see standing directly behind the lanky Kaepernick. At 12-1, No. 13 Nevada holds the highest ranking in school history. Only a surprising loss at Hawaii has kept them from an unblemished record. And their Thanksgiving weekend, impossible comeback, overtime win over Boise State received national attention as an ESPN audience watched in amazement as Boise’s Kyle Brotzman missed two field goal attempts to open the door for the Wolf Pack in the 34-31 win. Now Ault and his Nevada team bring their act to San Francisco for Kaepernick’s final collegiate game and an opportunity to further expose the football world to their Pistol offense. Ault, the ultimate salesman for Reno and Nevada football, senses the opportunity. We’re going to need all of our people to show up for this game. We need Reno to show up and show what we’re all about,” Ault said |
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