I sometimes read a blog called Smart Football. It's pretty good if you really like to get down and dirty with the Xs and Os and technical side of football. I enjoy it, but do admit sometimes it gets to be a bit much. It's not a blog I read every day, but I do check it on a weekly basis, give or take a day. 

Today, Chris Brown (he's one of the site's editors, he might be the owner) has a long piece on the pistol formation, complete with some video. Chis starts out by making a key point that I've been trying to make all off season: the pistol is not a "new offense." It's a formation. For UCLA (where CRN is using the term "revolver"), it means our guys did not have to learn a whole new set of plays, rather they learned to run the same plays from a different formation. The terminology and the like stayed the same. The only real differences are some new plays and I've been told a few of the blocking schemes changed, but not very much. This is a good thing, because the pistol plays to our strengths but didn't require the players to learn a whole new offense. Remember, with Rick Neuheisel, Norm Chow and Bob Palcic all in their third season, this is the first time we've had any continuity with the head coach, OC and O-line coach.

This is the link to the post. 

Here is a link to another piece by Brown that he linked to from the post cited above. ( I searched BN to see if this was already linked here. I didn't see it, so if it's already been linked, my bad.) 

I think you'll find the both interesting reading, if the Xs and Os of football strategy are something you find interesting. If nothing else, you'll learn a bit about our offense.

There are a couple of other links within the links worth calling out.

Pistol Part 1

Part 2