Could You Run The Triple Option Today?

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[Note – I’m kinda using “wishbone” and “triple option” interchangeably here. These can be distinct, but I get the idea a lot of people mush them together into a single concept. Give me some latitude. Ha! – Jon]

Sometime in the late 1980s, one of the most dominant systems in college football history quietly disappeared. No announcement. No final game. No eulogy. Programs that had built national championship dynasties on the wishbone offense simply walked away, rebuilt their playbooks, and started chasing a different kind of football.

The question that deserves a real answer is: did the wishbone offense actually stop working — or did college football decide to stop running the triple option offense for reasons that had far more to do with money, prestige, and NFL draft positioning than they did with wins and losses? Those are two very different questions, and the answer matters more than most people realize.

The Recruiting Math Broke First

The first and most damaging blow to the wishbone offense wasn’t a defensive scheme. It was a recruiting pitch. When Miami was developing NFL first-round quarterbacks and wide receivers under Howard Schnellenberger and Jimmy Johnson, a high school prospect choosing between the Hurricanes and a wishbone program already knew which decision made more financial sense. The wishbone offense quarterback reads, runs, and pitches. He doesn’t throw from the pocket. His statistical profile is invisible to NFL scouts. That reality, once it hardened into conventional wisdom, was nearly impossible to reverse.

The same logic applied down the roster. Offensive linemen in the wishbone offense were trained to be quick and mobile, not pass protectors. Wide receivers might catch seven passes in an entire season. Every position that mattered in the NFL draft economy was being underserved by the system. Recruits with professional ambitions had every reason to go elsewhere, and they did.

The Rules Finished the Job

What the recruiting market started, the NCAA rulebook accelerated. The triple option offense — particularly the flexbone version that outlasted the wishbone era — relied heavily on cut blocking on the perimeter. Smaller, quicker players used blocks below the waist to neutralize physically superior defenders on the edge of the play. It was the great equalizer for outmanned rosters, and it was foundational to how the triple option offense attacked the perimeter.

Between the early 2000s and 2018, the NCAA systematically eliminated most of those blocking techniques through a series of rule changes framed as player safety measures. Paul Johnson, who ran the triple option offense at Navy and Georgia Tech and served on the NCAA rules committee, argued openly that the changes disproportionately targeted option-based systems. After each rule change, option teams lost more of their ability to threaten the outside. A linebacker who no longer fears a cut block can pursue the pitch back without hesitation — and that changes the entire arithmetic of the triple option offense.

Paul Johnson Proved the Flexbone Offense Could Still Win

In 2008, Johnson arrived at Georgia Tech and ran the flexbone triple option offense in the ACC for eleven seasons. His teams beat Florida State, Georgia, Clemson, and Mississippi State in bowl games. He won ACC Coach of the Year in his first two seasons and compiled 82 wins, three division titles, and nine bowl appearances — running an offense that the rest of the sport had declared obsolete.

What Johnson proved was that the flexbone offense and its descendants were not broken. What he couldn’t overcome was the negative recruiting narrative — opposing coaches telling prospects the triple option offense would ruin their NFL prospects — combined with recruiting classes that never cracked the top 40 nationally. Scheme can close a talent gap. It cannot close every talent gap at every position simultaneously, year after year.

The Triple Option Offense Is Still Alive Right Now

The most direct rebuttal to anyone who calls the triple option offense a relic: watch Army football. In 2024, the Black Knights went undefeated in conference play, won the American Athletic Conference championship — the program’s first in 134 years — and finished 11-1. Their quarterback rushed for 32 touchdowns and finished sixth in Heisman voting. Navy went 11-2 that same season and finished ranked 23rd in the final AP Poll.

The triple option offense is not a museum piece. It produces winning records, conference championships, bowl victories, and ranked finishes in the modern era. But the service academies operate under conditions no Power 4 program shares. Roster stability is guaranteed by institutional commitment — players don’t enter the transfer portal. In an era where more than 2,600 players enter the portal every season, that continuity is the oxygen the triple option offense requires to function at its highest level.

The Ceiling Is Real, But the Option Offense Isn’t Broken

The wishbone offense and the triple option offense were not defeated by better football. They were priced out of an economy that the sport created around professional contracts, NIL money, and transfer portal leverage. The coaches who still run the triple option offense do so because their institutions operate entirely outside that economy.

Every fall, you can turn on an Army or Navy game and watch something most of college football decided it no longer had time for. The wishbone offense still works. It’s just not for sale anymore.

Bottom Line

The above article is an AI-produced synopsis of the YouTube video. At the end of the YouTube video, I did a bonus talking about why it would be nearly impossible to run the triple option offense in today’s football because of its complexity.

An option offense takes more time to install and way more practice time than any other offense in college football . You have to commit to it wholly or you’re not going to get the benefits of the option. This is why you can’t just magically bring it in for some package play, or on the goal line and see the same success that teams years ago saw.

Double options, like the speed option, are still frequently run from time to time. These are still complex but do not have the complexity of the wishbone and the triple option because of the exchange between the fullback and quarterback.

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