LEWISTON, Maine – Bates football offensive coordinator Mitchell Thompson needed to go back to the drawing board. 

He came to Bates in 2022 as part of new head coach Matt Coyne's staff and inherited an experienced team built for the spread offense. The Bobcats scored 19 points per game that season, the highest-scoring Bates team since 2012. 

The 2022 team had experience and talent, but lacked depth, and that showed when the seniors graduated. In 2023, the Bobcats averaged less than 12 points per game, their fewest in one season since 2006.

"We made the mistake in 2023 of thinking that the offense was better than its core parts," Thompson says. "We lost some of those players to graduation, so we needed young guys to step up, and they just weren't ready that year." 

As Thompson and the coaching staff prepared for 2024, they took a look at the roster and thought about what offense would suit the current personnel the best. 

Then one day, it hit them. 

Thompson remembered his college days at Washington & Lee University, where he played defensive back, graduating in 2014.
 
"We had to go up against the triple option offense every day in practice," says Thompson.

The triple option is just what it sounds like: The quarterback has three options on every play, to hand the ball off to the running back, keep the ball and run, or pitch the ball to a slotback, who is almost always in motion. 

Defending the triple option is not a pleasant experience.

"What's interesting about the triple option is that it makes life difficult for the defense because it's tough to get a read on what the offense is doing next," Thompson says. "It looks like a complicated offense, but it's actually quite simple." 

With playmakers like sophomore running back Ryan Lynskey (Cranford, N.J.) and junior do-everything athlete Sergio Beltran (East Palo Alto, Calif.) ready to carry the ball, and a young but talented offensive line eager to lead the way, the coaching staff realized the triple option would be perfect for the Bobcats.

And the coaches knew where they needed to go to learn more about implementing the option: Davidson College.

The Wildcats of Davidson are an NCAA Division I program in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), and they run the option to near-perfection. (Davidson put up a cool 70 points on Oct. 19 against Stetson.) It just so happens that Davidson head coach Scott Abell was the offensive coordinator, and then head coach, at Washington & Lee when Thompson played there.

So Thompson, Coyne, and offensive line coach Owen Watrous made the trip down to North Carolina to exchange ideas and talk shop with Abell and his coaching staff. 

"The cool thing for us was the Davidson coaches are looking at their offense in a lot of the same ways we are looking at ours," Thompson says. "They're attacking individuals on defense, they're attacking space on defense. And that's exactly what we were doing, with a different offense, last year." 

"They just simplified everything, down to 'what are the little things that really matter?' Last year we kind of started chasing wins and we chased touchdowns. And this year, we're chasing techniques. We're chasing the little things that make you a great team."

Bates senior captain quarterback Colton Bosselait (Westminster, Mass.) was excited when he first heard from the coaching staff that the Bobcats would be running an option offense this season. 

"Previously, it was really hard to get our run game going and that made it really tough in the pass game because teams would just key into the pass and they would not respect our run game at all," Bosselait says. "So knowing that now we were going to be able to get our run game going, it would make passing a lot easier and open up play-action shots down the field." 

Bosselait and sophomore Seneca Moore (Lansing, Mich.) have shared quarterback duties this year, with Bosselait getting the majority of the snaps as Moore continues to develop.

"We're each other's biggest supporters when we're on the field," Bosselait says. "We just care about winning and we want to see everybody succeed. So when we're on the sideline, we're always talking about, 'Hey, what are you seeing? This is what I'm seeing on the field.' We're just making sure everybody's prepared for when their number is called."

Neither had ever run an option offense before this season. But the change has been a welcome one.

"This offense is definitely easier for me to comprehend and it's helped me grow as a quarterback," Moore says. "It's a lot easier for our incoming first-years to learn as well." 

Still, there's been a rather obvious learning curve for everyone. The Bobcats struggled to score points the first two weeks of the season, tallying a lone touchdown against both Amherst and Trinity. 

Then, things started to click. Over their last four contests, Bates has averaged 23 points per game. 

"There were two plays against Colby where I ripped off back-to-back runs of over 10 yards, where I thought, 'This is what it's all about,'" Moore says. "It was the exact same play, and they couldn't stop it."

The glimpses, the intriguing signs, of this offense's potential is what has everyone at Bates excited for what is to come. 

"The next step for our offense is being able to connect on those play-action [passing] shots," Bosselait says. "We haven't been as efficient as we want to be. We've gotten a lot better at getting the ball outside on those pitches, which we struggled with the first few weeks. And now I think the next step is being able to improve in our passing game and connecting on those deep shots." 

In fact, Bates is already ahead of the game in one very important statistical category: fumbles. In the triple option, fumbles can be an issue, especially when the quarterback is making the pitch. But the Bates offense has only fumbled once all season, and they were able to recover it. 

"We practice the mesh [between the running back and quarterback] a lot, and the pitch a lot, and the quarterbacks have done a great job making sure that the pitch is in the hands of whoever's receiving it," Lynskey says. "They do a good job of putting the ball in there and taking control, so we don't really have too much to worry about." 

Lynskey has been a force all year running the ball for the Bobcats, as he leads the NESCAC with 569 rushing yards and six touchdowns. He was named the NESCAC Offensive Player of the Week after the Bobcats upset Wesleyan earlier this season. 

But it was Beltran's return from injury in week three that really sparked the offense. 

"Sergio is an awesome receiver, but my God, give him the ball and he can do things with it," Thompson says. "So, we asked ourselves, 'How many times can we give him the ball in this offense compared to our passing offense from last year?'' 

Through four games, Beltran has carried the ball 27 times for 174 yards and two touchdowns, averaging 6.4 yards per carry. He's also caught nine passes for 86 yards and a touchdown. It's been a wild journey for a guy who came to Bates as a quarterback, moved to wide receiver, and is now a slotback in the triple option. In fact, missing the first two games due to injury was a blessing in disguise for Beltran.

"With it being a new scheme, I got a better sense watching from the sidelines of how the defense reacts and plays to our offense," Beltran says. "Now, we're getting better with each game and our offense is starting to fully flourish." 

Of course, there's nothing new under the sun. 

Long-time Bates fans will recall that the Bobcats ran the triple option as recently as 2017 under former head coach Mark Harriman and assistant coach Skip Capone. It was a little different (they ran it from a different formation, known as the "pistol", instead of the "shotgun"), but it generated some strong results, especially in 2012. The Bobcats set a school record for points per game (27) that year and posted their first winning season since 1981. 

Capone, who is now the head football coach at Cheverus High School, is thrilled to see the Bobcats return to an option offense.

"It forces the opposing defense to simplify everything they're doing," Capone says. "They can't really blitz, they have to try to react to you." 

Thompson was coaching at Amherst during the latter day Harriman and Capone era.

"Both coach Capone and coach Harriman have been great to all of us in this profession," Thompson says. "We talked to both of them before making this change. It's something that we really hope Bates alumni can be proud of. It's getting back to what I remember coaching against when I was at Amherst."

"It's here to stay. This is what we do and we're going to do it really well."