SF Chronicle 49ers Insider: How to play the Pistol: Chris Ault explains

By Art Spander
49ers Insider, San Francisco Chronicle iPad App

The elements of the formation are basic. The man who is directing  things is not. The Pistol works. Colin Kaepernick makes it work.
     
Chris Ault just stepped down as head coach at the University of Nevada in Reno. That after proving he could design a scheme which would help his team and then many others take the steps they wanted on a football field.
    
“We’ve had more fun with this thing,” said Ault. So have the Niners.
   
“It is the next big thing in the NFL,” said Trent Dilfer, the ESPN analyst, and appropriately with the Super Bowl matching those teams, a former quarterback for both the Ravens and 49ers.
   
Ault had coached at Nevada, where he graduated in 1965, from 1976 to ’95, then became athletic director. “We used the one-back offense,” he said, “and were the No. 1 throwing team in the nation.”
   
When he returned as coach, his philosophy changed. “In this day and age, if you’re going to win a championship, you’ve got to run the ball better,” said Ault.
   
He wanted the quarterback off the line of scrimmage but not as far back as the five yards or so in the shotgun formation because that makes for too much side to side running.
   
He moved the QB up and the running backs directly behind him so that the backs could run right at the line of scrimmage. It was the spring of 2005.
  
“My assistants were getting their resumes ready,” said Ault, 67. “They thought it would never work.”
   
It worked when Nevada went 13-1 in 2010. It worked when the Niners beat Green Bay and Atlanta to advance to Super Bowl XLVII. It worked because the defense isn’t quite sure how to play. It worked because Kaepernick, with great speed, with a great arm, is at the controls.
  
“There is so much more to the Pistol,” said Ault. “You can run anything you like. With a quarterback being in a position where he can carry, that’s a dimension they haven’t had in the NFL.”
  
Which answers the question whether a unique college offense – do not call it a gimmick, insists Ault – could find a place in the pros, who are notoriously rigid in their beliefs how to play offense and what a quarterback should do.
  
As Ault pointed out, with Robert Griffin III of the Redskins, with Kaepernick of the 49ers, the Pistol is a perfect alignment.
     
“You have a thrower who can run,” said Ault, “or a runner who can throw. The Pistol provides opportunity along that line. And because the quarterback may run, as Colin did in the playoff game against the Packers, or may hand off as they did to (Frank) Gore against the Falcons, the (defensive) rush against the offensive line may be slowed down. The Pistol is not just a read-option formation.”
     
Kaepernick was a redshirt freshman in the fall of 2007. “I had seen him at a high school quarterback camp we had,” said Ault. “He had run the Wing-T in high school, so he hardly ever carried the ball, but I saw what he could do.”
    
When Nevada’s starter was injured early on that season of ’07, Kaepernick stepped in – as five years later he would step in to replace an injured Alex Smith with the 49ers. “It was a great marriage,” said Ault of player and plan.
    
In his four seasons at Nevada, Kaepernick passed for 10,098 yards and ran for 4,112, becoming the only player in the Football Bowl Subdivision to pass for more than 2,000 yards and rush for more than 1,000 three times in an undergraduate career.
    
As we know, Niners coach Jim Harbaugh went to Nevada to scout Kaepernick. As we know, Niner offensive coordinator Greg Roman, who was at Stanford with Harbaugh in 2010, “loved the downhill element” of the Pistol.
  
"Sure, it can be defended,” said Ault. “Any formation can be defended. But it’s a matter of personnel and execution.”
   
So far, the personnel who have executed have been on the 49er offense, as in 2010 they were on the offense at Nevada, when the school not only made it to the Fight Hunger Bowl at AT&T but also upset then unbeaten Boise State.
    
“It isn’t predicated on the quarterback running,” Ault told the NFL Network about the offense. “The defense will take away some of the runs, but that leaves the middle open.”
  
As it did Sunday in the NFC Championship, when Gore scored two touchdowns.
   
Because the running back is directly behind the quarterback, the linebackers do not have a clear view, making it harder to key on the running back.
   
While Colin has copyrighted his touchdown gesture, “Kaepernicking,” Ault unfortunately never through about a copyright of his formation, which he calls “my baby.” And it is.

Copyright 2013 San Francisco Chronicle