Absolutely! We never again want to have to put up with seeing things like this!...
Ohio State runs a spread-style offense that is closer in theory to Nebraska's than it is to any other offense in the B1G, and they seem to be doing okay with it. Minnesota just turned their program around with a spread offense. Michigan just switched to a spread offense. Penn State has been running a spread offense, and they used it to win the only B1G championship in the past 5 years that Ohio State did NOT win. Wisconsin--the recent Holy Grail of a successful B1G Ground & Pound offense--has been steadily adding an increasing percentage of spread offense plays, series, and formations to their offensive playbook.
Other than that, though, you're right: spread offenses can't work in the B1G.
What Minnesota runs is a very vanilla, very traditional Spread-to-RPO offense with a heavy reliance on 2x2 offensive sets, and the Quick-Slant pass is the backbone of the passing part of the RPO. Frost's offense has mixed formations and lots of motion to be able to attack out-of-position defenders and look for mismatches, and the base portion of the passing part of Frost's RPO are variations of Bubble Screens/Tunnel Screens/Smoke Screens/RB Screens, all of which a lot of folks on this board apparently want to call "Swing Passes."
Excellent point.
This guy gets it.
They're intertwined, often even on the same play call. A common option route on a Bubble Screen is for the outside WR to the screen side to block for a second on his defender then release deep. If the defender covers that WR going deep, the play is still the screen pass behind him, and his covering the WR took him out of the play as well or better than if the WR had to block him for the whole time; if he doesn't cover the WR going deep? The QB fakes the screen pass, throws it deep. Fans on this board celebrate the TD and congratulate themselves on their superior wisdom in knowing that we shouldn't throw so many of those darn "swing passes."
The horizontal passes are part of the RPOs that make up the foundation of the entire offense. To say that you want it put to the back of the playbook is just another way of saying that you want a different offense.
This guy gets it.