What is the Pistol Offense?

The Pistol offense is an offense designed to allow teams to keep the running game of under center formations, while also giving the quarterback time to throw like in Shotgun. This offense is a hybrid of the two, and since a pistol is a smaller form of gun, it got the name Pistol.

What are the origins of Under Center Offenses?

The Pistol offense was developed by Chris Ault when he coached at the University of Nevada, Reno in 1999. He was given a concept of a quarterback being able to hand the ball of and throw at the same time and created the Pistol formation out of that concept.

Are there any famous teams who used this defense?

As with the other two, there are many different teams that are using this formation at different times. This formation, however, is still picking up steam due to it being fairly recently developed.