Virginia Tech had plenty of problems on Saturday, but this being a filmic article, let’s examine the problems on the perimeter. Vanderbilt went into the game dead-set on avoiding the middle of the Hokies’ defense. In both the first and the final minutes of the game, Vanderbilt’s tool of choice was the Zone Read from a heavy pistol formation.

The NMSU brain trust now responsible for Vanderbilt’s offense didn’t run much from the pistol that I saw, so it probably surprised the Hokies a little. The pistol is a best-of-both-worlds formation that pairs some of the directness and unpredictability of the I-formation while giving the quarterback some of the protective cushion afforded by a shotgun snap.

The Zone Read is similarly safe and flexible, with the zone-blocking scheme limiting negative plays and the mesh being harder to mess up than a pitch, but still applying the stress of an option call. Unlike the veer and speed option plays that came before it, Zone Read also stresses defenses to both sides of the ball, with the running back going in one direction and the quarterback going in the other. If you have a kid playing football right now, there’s a good chance the first play they’re repping in two-a-days is Zone Read. The Zone Read is old enough to legally drink and rent a car (though not necessarily at the same time) while grooming a dad bod, so there’s not much new to it. Chris Ault’s creation of the meat-grinder Pistol offense and its version of the Zone Read is almost as old. To put another way, the Pistol scheme wasn’t a newcomer to the football scene even when it helped spark this little upset fourteen years ago:

Sorry about that.

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