• NCAA Football 11 - Pistol Offense

    NCAA Football designer Anthony White has posted another offensive styles blog, this time focusing on the Pistol offense run by schools such as Nevada. Click Read More for the blog.

    Pistol -- The Pistol combines elements of the one back offense with those of the shotgun based spread offense. The quarterback aligns 3 yards behind the center as opposed to the 5 to 6 yards he would align in a normal shotgun formation. The halfback aligns directly behind the quarterback at a depth of 7 yards (See Figure 1). With this setup the offense can run traditional downhill running plays and play action passes that are synonymous with the I formation and it gives the quarterback the benefit of being in the shotgun for regular passing plays. This offense was originated by the current head coach at Nevada and has been a staple of their program for several years now.

    Figure 1



    Over the past few years several teams have used the Pistol as part of their offensive package as it is becoming more and more prevalent in the college game today. Some of these teams include Ohio State, Louisiana State, Florida State, UCLA, Illinois, Baylor and the last two National Champions Florida and Alabama. However there are only three teams that use it extensively which includes Indiana, Ohio University and of course the Nevada Wolfpack.


    Because of the reasons listed above and if you have the right personnel, the Pistol is the ultimate dual threat offense when utilized correctly. Over the past few seasons the Nevada Wolfpack has done just that. With quarterbacks that are able to both run and pass effectively and a stable of excellent running backs, the Wolfpack have put up some astounding numbers on offense (see chart below). Over the past two seasons the Wolfpack has averaged over 500 yards per game of total offense while leading the nation during the 2009 season with an absurd average of 344.9 rushing yards per game. This average was almost 50 yards more than the second highest rushing team. They also became the first team in NCAA history to have three 1000-yd rushers.


    Signature Play: Read Option - A big part of Nevada's success with the running game in 2009 came via the Read Option play which we discussed previously in the Spread Offense blog. The read option play itself is most synonymous with the spread offense but it can also be run just as effectively from the Pistol formation. The read option play from the Pistol in theory works the same as it does from the shotgun. The difference between the two is obviously the alignment of the quarterback and halfback. With the halfback being aligned directly behind the quarterback this meant that we needed to add read option handoff animations specifically for the Pistol formation.

    Video of mocap file of read option



    Signature Play: PA Rollout - PA Rollout is a play that can be run from the Pistol to take advantage of overly aggressive run defenders. The quarterback will perform a play action fake to the halfback going in one direction before rolling out in the opposite direction to throw a pass. The quarterback will generally have three receivers (short, medium, and deep) working towards the side of the field of his rollout.

    New Pistol Sets

    The following Pistol sets are new to NCAA Football 11. These sets can be found in a variety of playbooks which was done based on our research of each team's offense.


    Pistol 4WR Trio



    Pistol Jumbo Z



    Pistol Weak H Slot

    Comments 17 Comments
    1. procops1's Avatar
      procops1 -
      thats what we run at Midland Lutheran baby! go warriors
    1. cdj's Avatar
      cdj -
      I've been running quite a bit of the Pistol with Ohio State in the demo and really enjoying it. I may have to use a playbook that has that as one of the formations in it.
    1. gschwendt's Avatar
      gschwendt -
      Quote Originally Posted by cdj View Post
      I've been running quite a bit of the Pistol with Ohio State in the demo and really enjoying it. I may have to use a playbook that has that as one of the formations in it.
      I'll definitely be using the pistol much more this year. Thankfully I showed them the hitch in the animation on the handoff for the HB dive at CD. It goes MUCH smoother now and really opens up the offense.
    1. JeffHCross's Avatar
      JeffHCross -
      Thank you, thank you, thank you G. That ruined the Pistol for me last year.
    1. morsdraconis's Avatar
      morsdraconis -
      I'm definitely going to have to play around with the Pistol. The poor blocking in '10 really ruined it for me.
    1. HuskerBlitz's Avatar
      HuskerBlitz -
      I ran the Pistol on '09 (last gen) and tried it again on '10 (next gen) and really struggled as well. On '09 I was putting up Nevada-type rushing numbers, but it took me quite awhile to get the hang of it on '10. Eventually I went with a hybred offense with a few Pistol sets. I found that if you played around with the slide protection, the running game on '10 from the Pistol was at least competent.
    1. JBHuskers's Avatar
      JBHuskers -
      Didn't do Pistol too much previously but when I played this at the Community Day and NFL Draft, just like the Quads formation, I had a lot of fun doing some plays in the Pistol.
    1. HawkFan's Avatar
      HawkFan -
      I've used the Pistol offense a lot in the past and found that it was somewhat limited on the type of running plays that you could find. Hopefully this is something that will be addressed in this years game. I am really impressed by the blogs and videos so far, hopefully we will get an I-form or two back style offense blog soon.
    1. CLW's Avatar
      CLW -
      It will be interesting to see how effective each of these styles are once the game finally arrives. My guess is the no huddle spread will be the offense that dominates 11.
    1. morsdraconis's Avatar
      morsdraconis -
      Quote Originally Posted by CLW View Post
      It will be interesting to see how effective each of these styles are once the game finally arrives. My guess is the no huddle spread will be the offense that dominates 11.
      Yup. Definitely.

      But I think certainly formations of the Pistol (like Ohio State's Pony formation) will enable it to be a VERY balanced attack and quite hard to stop (the dive play, if you catch them in man coverage and not blitzing, can be VERY deadly just going by what I was able to do messing around with Ohio State on the demo).
    1. AustinWolv's Avatar
      AustinWolv -
      I don't know, just running I and Ace in the demo can be pretty damn dominant. The running game is a lot of fun in that regard, and it feels much better than last year which was all animation-driven, so it wasn't like you were running the ball. The blocking works well, I've seen some blocks on the edge that were right off the real TV, so I might have to mess with pistol some to give it a shot. I'll have to wait for the release though because I'd have to shower with bleach if I used the Acorns.
    1. JeffHCross's Avatar
      JeffHCross -
      Quote Originally Posted by AustinWolv View Post
      I'll have to wait for the release though because I'd have to shower with bleach if I used the Acorns.
      Haha. This I can believe.
    1. jaymo76's Avatar
      jaymo76 -
      This is what I find so dissapointing about no custom playbooks. I want to run the PISTOL but I also want some other options like I FORMATION and Split back. I may just go with the generic Pistol playbook but if that doesn't work out I may well go with FSU's... I really like their demo playbook.
    1. HawkFan's Avatar
      HawkFan -
      Quote Originally Posted by jaymo76 View Post
      This is what I find so dissapointing about no custom playbooks. I want to run the PISTOL but I also want some other options like I FORMATION and Split back. I may just go with the generic Pistol playbook but if that doesn't work out I may well go with FSU's... I really like their demo playbook.
      Exactly, I loved the days when we could pick the formations we wanted in our playbooks instead of being stuck with a default one to start out with. One can only hope that this will come back at some point in the future.
    1. gschwendt's Avatar
      gschwendt -
      Quote Originally Posted by jaymo76 View Post
      This is what I find so dissapointing about no custom playbooks. I want to run the PISTOL but I also want some other options like I FORMATION and Split back. I may just go with the generic Pistol playbook but if that doesn't work out I may well go with FSU's... I really like their demo playbook.
      Take a look at Ohio State's playbook in the demo. I used it a lot last year and it has a great mixture of formations including the Pistol Pony formation.
    1. HawkFan's Avatar
      HawkFan -
      Quote Originally Posted by gschwendt View Post
      Take a look at Ohio State's playbook in the demo. I used it a lot last year and it has a great mixture of formations including the Pistol Pony formation.
      As much as it pains me to say it as I "love" the Buckeyes of so much, their playbook at least on the demo has a lot of possibilities.
    1. jaymo76's Avatar
      jaymo76 -
      Quote Originally Posted by gschwendt View Post
      Take a look at Ohio State's playbook in the demo. I used it a lot last year and it has a great mixture of formations including the Pistol Pony formation.
      Yeah, I agree. I have found a lot of flexibility in Ohio State's book and I may well use it... I can't wait to see all of the playbooks though so I can really get a feel for what will suite me best this year.