Foreman guided by triple option

Foreman coach Mark King is no stranger to using various forms of the option.

When he was the head coach at Parkers Chapel, King used it as part of the Trojans’ offense, leading PC to their lone playoff win back in 2010.

“We ran a little bit of the option at Parkers Chapel,” King said. “The midline was part of our package. We did it with Jacob (Midyett) that year, and we ran a little bit of it with Zach (Abbott) and Phil (Hay), but we were mostly a Wing-T team when I was at Parkers Chapel.”

But since arriving at Foreman with the triple option, King has posted a 31-6 record in three years, including a run to the 2A state title last year.

King became acquainted with the option through Ken Wheaton, who is now at Harding University as an offensive consultant, and he installed the triple option after a winless season at Horatio.

“I did my student teaching under Ken Wheaton at Arkadelphia, and Ken’s the guy who invented the midline option,” King said. “He’s the option guru. All the guys from Georgia Tech and Navy and all

those schools, they call coach Wheaton. He puts on option clinics all over the country, and I’ve known Kenny for a long, long time.

“He’s a mentor of mine and a good friend. I put it in my last year at Horatio, and we went from 0-10 the year before when I hired a young offensive coordinator and let him talk me into the running the spread, to 5-5 with not very many athletes.

“In the five games that we lost, we were minus15 in turnovers. We were in every game. We never got embarrassed. We played Prescott, and we had no business even being in the game with their athletes. They ended up beating us 42-21, but we had the ball inside the 20 four times and didn’t score. We had over 400 yards rushing.”

King has stayed with it since with great success.

“It’s just a good equalizer,” King said. “You don’t have to be extremely athletic. If you’ve got great defensive linemen, we don’t have to block them, we’ll read them. The better coached team that you are, we’ll use that against you.

“If you’re taught to squeeze or do this or that, we’ll use what you’ve been taught against you in the triple option and just take what we get. You have to be very disciplined to stop the triple option, and most high school teams aren’t. It’s hard to get ready for it in a week because not many people run the triple option anymore.”

King added that the offense works very well with his personnel.

“It fits our kids well,” King said. “Of course, the more athletic you are, and the better you are, the more potent it is. Most of the games that we’ve lost, you can contribute to turnovers. We’ve really beaten ourselves. What I like about it is it’s very simple. My guys never change plays.

“Our quarterback doesn’t have to change a play at the line of scrimmage based on how they’re lined up. We no huddle it, and I get to call the plays based on how the defense is lined up, and I always try to put my guys in a good situation. “In the old-school option, you had to call it in the huddle, and you went up there and if they were lined up and you had a play called that wasn’t good, the quarterback had to change the play and linemen had to listen for live colors. Our guys don’t have to listen for that. We keep it very simple. They just get to play fast, which makes it even better for high school kids. The less a kid has to think, the faster he can play, the better they’re going to be.”