STARKVILLE — Mississippi State defensive coordinator Todd Grantham coached against Georgia Tech’s triple option attack four times in his years at Georgia; MSU saw the attack itself in the 2014 Orange Bowl.
It doesn’t give MSU much to work with as it relates to stopping Charleston Southern’s take on the system.
When the Buccaneers visit MSU for the season opener Saturday at 3 p.m., they’ll bring an offense based in a shotgun, two-back triple option that presents more challenges than the traditional option run system.
“Three-back options teams — traditional wishbone, double slot teams — there are a variety of formations, but there are some limitations to it if you want to maintain three-back or at least two-back principles. We formation people more extensively, our history and our film shows that,” Charleston Southern coach Mark Tucker told The Dispatch.
“If there’s one clear separating identity, we throw it an awful lot more. That’s the nature of the offense as we have it structured: it’s all by choice, we just know we have to do more things that growing up in the option offense you didn’t feel like you could do.”
Comparing Charleston Southern’s numbers to the option offense of the FBS supports his claim. Over the last three seasons, Navy, Army, New Mexico and Georgia Tech have run on over 81 percent of their offensive plays, with Army and Navy getting as high 84 and 85 percent in most seasons. In that same time frame, Charleston Southern ran on 66.2 percent of plays in 2014, 68 percent in 2015 and 71.9 percent last year.
Grantham has noticed: he noted Charleston Southern’s leading returning receiver, Kameron Brown, and his 20 yards per catch last season.
When it does run, Charleston Southern’s take on the triple option comes from a two-back shotgun formation with the running backs slightly behind the quarterback’s hips. It gives both backs an angle for a straightforward dive into the middle, which the Bucs hope is open based on its wide splits.
More times than not, Charleston Southern’s offensive linemen line up with more space in between each other than most offenses. The idea is for opposing defensive lines to maintain their alignments relative to offensive lineman positioning, they have to spread out more as the offensive linemen did, giving the dive more room to operate.
One of the MSU tackles that could be isolated in that sense, Braxton Hoyett, doesn’t see it as a handicap.
“You really, as a defensive lineman, you take advantage of that,” he said. “With their wide splits, you know you have dive coming and they’re really reading off you to see what you do, so it’s a big advantage for us to come off the ball, shoot the gap and make big plays. We’ve played teams in the past with wide splits and we’ve always held up to that challenge.”
As Grantham put it, “You have to be good on all three phases at all times. You have to set an edge and build a wall inside.”
While this is the first football meeting between the two schools, Tucker can warn his players as to what it’s like to play in Davis Wade Stadium. Tucker was an offensive assistant for East Tennessee State in 1998; MSU won that game 53-6. Tucker walked away with one prominent memory: “I’m fully aware of what the cowbells sound like.”
Beyond that, Charleston Southern is no stranger to playing FBS or Southeastern Conference teams, either. The Bucs, No. 14 in the preseason FCS poll, don’t expect to be intimidated.
“We’ve gone into Alabama, we’ve seen Alabama; they are as advertised. We’ve seen Georgia; they are as advertised,” Tucker said. “We gave Vanderbilt a run a couple of years ago, had an opportunity to win that game.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter, @Brett_Hudson
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