The rise of the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers into college football prominence is one of the more unexpected storylines to come out of 2020, and that’s saying a lot. The small school by the beach in Conway, S.C., recently made the transition from FCS to FBS after joining the Sun Belt Conference full time in 2017. In 2019, their offense started piquing the interest of coaches and football nerds around the country. Suddenly people were clamoring over film of this relatively unknown team that plays on a teal field because of the team’s creativity.

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In 2020, the Chanticleers proved that their offense wasn’t just a novelty. They scored 37.2 points per game and finished with their first undefeated regular season. Although they lost to Liberty, 37-34, in the Cure Bowl, Coastal Carolina finished 14th in the final AP Top 25. Their offense was born and evolved out of necessity.

“It’s a 21 personnel (two running backs, one tight end, two receivers), spread-option offense,” Coastal Carolina co-offensive coordinator Willy Korn explained. “We’re going to get into a bunch of different formations and have a bunch of different motions and shifts and different presentations but run a lot of the same core concepts over and over and just try to window dress them the best we can. At the end of the day, it’s option football, option concepts but not in the traditional sense.”

Chanticleers head coach Jamey Chadwell began his coaching career at North Greenville, where there was a big talent and resource disparity between his team and the schools in its conference. He knew he couldn’t just run the same scheme that everyone else was running and expect to be successful. He needed an edge.

“(Chadwell) spent a lot of time and visited with Wofford College,” Korn said. “They are an FCS program in South Carolina that has been really consistently good for a really long time. They are a gun triple-option team. They are a little bit different from the service academies. I guess Air Force gets into the gun a little more now, but Wofford is different because they do everything from the shotgun — not everything but a majority of their option stuff was from the gun.”

A commitment to a two-back option offense with a heavy emphasis on pitching the ball was more commonplace with traditional under-center option teams. By running his offense from the shotgun, Chadwell got the edge of the option but also didn’t hamper his passing game. Also, the marketability of a shotgun offense matters to recruits. It’s a hard sell for recruits to go to a school running an under-center option offense.

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From North Greenville, Chadwell spent a season at Delta State before taking his offense to Charleston Southern and then Coastal Carolina. With each stop, the talent level got better but his teams were still behind other schools in their conferences as far as marketability and resources. Chadwell’s option offense helped bridge that gap. In 2020, freshman Grayson McCall broke out for the Chanticleers, throwing for 26 touchdowns and only three interceptions. He also ran for seven touchdowns. McCall’s ability, along with the collaboration among Chadwell, Korn and co-offensive coordinator Newland Isaac, took the offense to new heights.

“What it is now is not what it was in 2010, but the core principles of it are still there, still the same,” Korn explained. “It’s just as football has evolved, the offense has evolved. There’s a lot more run-pass option (RPO). And now obviously, when you take a QB like McCall, with his skill set and what he did as a freshman, you can really shred some people in the passing game and he still fits you well enough to run the option stuff that you’re carrying.”

One of the most difficult parts about defending the Coastal Carolina offense is how little information it gives pre-snap. Against shotgun teams, defenses will sometimes set their defense according to where the running back is aligned because it’s usually a major tell. If a back is offset to the right, the ball usually goes to the left because he has to run across the quarterback to get the ball. However, with some unique formations and footwork, the two-back Chanticleers offense has the ability to hand the ball off to either back to either side.

Here, the Chanticleers were in a pistol formation with a tailback directly behind the quarterback and a halfback offset to his right. This look presents a triple-option threat to the defense. The opponent knows it has to defend a running back dive, quarterback keep and pitch. But before the snap, the defense doesn’t know yet which back will carry out which phase of the option.

Usually, with this look, the offset back would run the dive to the offensive left, while the tailback runs the pitch. The running back who has more depth is usually the pitch back because he has to be behind the quarterback for the proper pitch relationship.

There’s also the possibility of the tailback running a dive to the right with the offset back becoming the pitch man. It’s important for defenses to have an idea about which direction the dive will go because they have to be prepared for a quarterback keep and pitch to the opposite side.

The actual play that Coastal Carolina ran from this formation was a fake dive to the tailback to the offensive right with the offset back running the pitch to the right. Watch the footwork that the offset back used to get into the proper pitch relationship with McCall. He backpedaled to get proper depth before sprinting to the perimeter. The footwork seems simple enough, but it has to be practiced. The payoff with the uncertainty it creates for the defense pre-snap is well worth it.

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This play wasn’t a true triple option. Because of the defensive alignment (odd front with nose head up on center), it became a glorified speed option with a fake to the running back. The quarterback wasn’t reading the end for a give or keep to the dive. He was keeping the ball the whole time and reading the end for a pitch. One of the most difficult parts of executing the speed option is blocking the play-side inside linebacker with a tackle. In the clip, the tackle still couldn’t get to the play-side linebacker, but the fake froze him just enough.

“We use to run a lot of two-back speed option,” Korn said. “Coach Chadwell would probably bust a vocal cord screaming, ‘Why can’t we get to the backer!’ Then you look at it and we’re putting that offensive lineman in a difficult position as far as catching the play-side linebacker.”

To help the tackle get to the play-side linebacker, the Chanticleers have a toolbox of fakes on their speed options.

Here, they’re lined up in a pistol formation with an offset back to McCall’s left. Initially, they faked like they are running a dive to the left with the quarterback and tailback opening to the right. The offset back also faked like he was going to run a pitch to the right. However, McCall pivoted back to the left, the tailback sprinted back to the left to become the pitch man, and the offset back arc-blocked on the perimeter for the pitch. The play-side linebacker ended up blitzing on this play and made himself an easy target to get blocked, but he did move toward the fake rather than sprint toward the pitch side.

The footwork to make a lot of these concepts work is tricky, especially because it’s unusual. There’s no textbook or old film that they can go look back at to learn and teach footwork. When their staff comes up with an idea for a new play or tweak, it has to be workshopped in coaches’ meetings before it’s tried out in practice.

“There are very few programs that do similar stuff so you’re not drawing from other people — you’re really trying stuff out for the first time — it feels like. We joke about it. We always say, ‘Are you ready to put your lab coat on today? We’re going to experiment and try something out,’” Korn explained. “Thankfully, we work for a head coach who half the time, he’s the one that’s coming up with the idea that pushes the envelope. He’s very supportive of trying to be creative and evolving it.”

Korn and Isaac split the responsibilities of game planning and have conversations about pre-snap alignment and back footwork weekly because even their fakes are very game-plan-specific. Early in the game-planning phase, they would experiment with different footwork and will get other staff members involved if needed. Sometimes, it’ll work and they’ll bring it to practice to teach the players. Sometimes, it ends up a disaster and they scrap it.

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“We are very, very, very conscientious of what we’re showing pre-snap and making sure there is no tendency and tells, and making sure your shot plays and plays that you’re trying to move the pocket, and your wrinkles off of that core play all look the same, especially week to week,” Korn said. “One week, you might, instead of the quarterback opening opposite on those freeze option plays, maybe you like him opening toward the field for whatever reason, but you’re making sure the play-action that you’re throwing off that (concept) looks the same that week.”

Here, Coastal Carolina ran a play-action shot concept designed off its speed option in the previous clip. McCall opened up to the left to fake a handoff in that direction, pivoted to the right to fake a speed option, before dropping back. The tight end to the left ran a post — he was McCall’s alert. McCall peeked at him, but the safety didn’t bite on the play fake, so he went to his first read in his main progression, which was the “sail” route to the right. The flat defender bit on the fake speed option, which opened up space for the sail route.

On this play-action shot play, the Chanticleers faked a triple option with a dive to the offset back to the left and a pitch to the tailback to the right. McCall sprinted right before setting up in the pocket. A nice touch to the play was pulling the center to the perimeter to block the edge defender. This allowed the right tackle to block down like he would on an option play, which added to the illusion. The tight end to the right faked like he was down blocking before leaking to the left deep. This shot concept is a popular one for NFL outside-zone teams, but it was brilliantly adapted to fit the Coastal Carolina offense with speed option action rather than outside zone and boot action.

Korn credited going to pistol formations and improving the RPO package as important evolutions in the Coastal Carolina offense.

“This is our first year of running it from the pistol,” Korn explained. “In 2019 and before, it was all both guys being offset. And we went to the pistol for a couple of reasons, and now I don’t know if I’ll ever go back. I love it so much just because you get so much extra ride time for your quarterback in the run game and you get so much ride time for your quarterback in the RPO game, and that’s where we took our next step from ’19 to ’20. Our RPOs were so much better because you get that extra ride time for the quarterback.”

What Korn means by “ride time” is how long the quarterback has the ball in the belly of the running back on a potential handoff. The longer the ball is in the back’s belly, the more uncertainty it creates for the defense because it’s not sure if the ball is going to be handed off or kept by the quarterback.

On this RPO, the slot receiver went in orbit motion because the Coastal Carolina staff knew that the Troy defense would rotate its safeties to respond based on film study. McCall had the option to hand the ball off to the tailback with an H-back lead blocking for him or keep it and throw it to the “glance” route to the bottom of the screen. McCall was reading the down safety. If the safety sat back, McCall would have handed the ball off. However, the safety came up to defend the run, so McCall made the correct choice to keep and throw the ball for an explosive play.

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Later that game, Coastal Carolina took advantage of Troy’s tendency to respond to orbit motion by rotating into single-high.

“(Troy) is multiple from a front standpoint. they’ll go three down, they’ll go four down,” Korn said. “But you can lock them into certain coverages. So any time you went orbit motion like this into the boundary, you’re going to lock them into a middle-closed, three-weak look.”

Because of the safety rotation, Coastal Carolina knew it could hit a glance away from the safety rotation. After McCall’s fake, he looked to the post right away. You can see the safety run out of position because of the motion. Also, this play looked almost identical to the RPO in which McCall threw front side in the previous clip.

One of the Chanticleers’ best concepts is their belly play. It’s not as flashy as some of their concepts, but it’s one of their most productive.

It’s a gap scheme play in which the play side of the offensive line down blocks. The center pulls and kicks out the edge player or leads up to an outside linebacker. Depending on the front or matchup, the center could switch responsibilities with the play-side guard. If the guard pulls instead of the center, the running back doesn’t have the option to cut back. He’ll likely stay front side.

“The belly play sometimes doesn’t make the highlight reel — other stuff gets all the attention,” Korn said. “That’s the one we really hang our hat on because so much of this offense is on the quarterback to make a decision, that’s one where we can say, ‘QB, catch the freakin’ snap and hand it off.’ Rarely does that happen.”

Because this isn’t an option play, the running back is firing off with speed and the quarterback is just trying to get the ball to him. There is no “ride time” with this play. It’s a physical downhill play, which can be hard to do out of the shotgun. For more details on how this play and more are run, check out Alex Kirby’s book breaking down the offense.

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College defenses have started to respond to spread offenses with “tite” fronts, which are essentially 3-3 fronts that focus on spilling the ball outside, so the defense has time to pursue. Knowing that they were going to see a lot of tite fronts against BYU, the Chanticleers staff tweaked their triple-option. On the first play of the game, they ran this beauty:

The concept was a midline option in which McCall read the inside linebacker for a give/keep. Usually, on a midline option, the offense would read an interior lineman, but you have to change blocking rules against tite fronts. The inside linebacker sat in his gap, so McCall pitched the ball off the defensive end. The offense was outnumbered to the perimeter with three defenders against two, so they had the right tackle arc block outside.

“We’re gaining an extra hat to take care of all three of those perimeter defenders. So now, our slot is blocking the overhang. You have to formation it to where you have a guy that could win that block,” Korn explained. “Now, you have a great matchup with your tackle on a corner. When you’re an option football team, teams will try to mix in some cover 2 to the field and that corner can be the run support player and try to blow up some of these perimeter runs because you’re trying to get on the edge. But now, good luck — you have a tackle freaking sprinting at you.”

This play is a great example of understanding the rules of the defense and designing a play to counter them. The Chanticleers took one of their core concepts and added a clever tweak that was tailored for their opponent.

Although the Coastal Carolina offense features play designs that are unique to the team, what makes the offense work is the multitude of tweaks and tags that are added on a week-to-week basis. Also, the team continually builds on its core concepts with play action and RPOs. This conscientious layering of the offense keeps it hard to defend. Even though the Coastal Carolina offense may look as flashy as its teal field, the secret isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel, it’s about constantly optimizing the wheel.

(Top photo of Grayson McCall and Shermari Jones: Douglas DeFelice / USA Today)