Owl Numbers will be disappointed to read this:

Why Army football is converting Jeff Monken’s triple-option offense to the shotgun
https://theathletic.com/4417216/2023/04/...n-shotgun/

Stewart Mandel Wrote:Jeff Monken’s teams have been running the under-center triple option since 1997, when he joined mentor Paul Johnson’s staff at Georgia Southern. The head coach ... believes in the old-school flexbone offense for one simple reason.

“It’s a pain in the ass to defend,” Monken said. “... you play an option team, and it’s like playing a different sport on defense.”

But starting this fall, Army’s opponents will no longer have to defend the under-center triple option. This spring, Monken is doing the unthinkable and moving his team to a primarily shotgun offense. He felt he didn’t have a choice in the wake of an under-the-radar NCAA rules change last year that eliminated blocking below the waist — known as cut blocking — anywhere but inside the tackle box. ...

“It’s frustrating because for a team like us that isn’t in the same recruiting conversations with everybody we play, there’s an element to that offense that makes us relevant and gives us a chance to be competitive.”

Back in 2018, the NCAA rules committee eliminated cut blocking more than 5 yards downfield because of injury concerns arising from the preponderance of RPO plays. Coaches adjusted. But eliminating all perimeter and downfield cut blocks has a particularly pronounced effect on the few remaining programs — mostly the service academies — that run the triple option.

“When those rule changes came up, I don’t want to say it targeted the service academies, but there had to be something there where you’re trying to eliminate a certain approach to football,” said Air Force’s Troy Calhoun, himself a former rules committee chairman. “Because truly, who else did it impact?” ...

“I was on the rules committee when I was coaching, and it was a constant battle then,” said Johnson, who retired at Georgia Tech following the 2018 season. “They say that it’s (to reduce) injuries, but they don’t have any stats to back it up. I think a lot of it is people just don’t want to play against it.”

Steve Shaw, the NCAA’s national coordinator of officials, said the committee in fact had access to extremely specific injury data justifying the change.

“Our medical data, which we’ve had for multiple (seasons) starting in 2019, tracked players that are injured — lower leg, like knee or ankle — while being blocked,” Shaw said. “What the statisticians told us was that starting immediately after we made this change, they could see — this is their word — a statistically significant reduction in knee and ankle injuries on players being blocked. That lined up with that (2018) rule change.”

Monken isn’t buying it. ...

I've had an idea it was coming, and no I am not happy with it.

Let me make something clear. I am not wedded to the triple option.

My football thinking starts with defense and special teams. If you can win those two areas, you are going to win most games. Bloomgren has, I admit, threatened those notions by improving defense and special teams but tying them to an offense that has been so consistently so dreadful (RUOwls, I can use that word too) as to render the defensive and special teams improvements moot.