While preparing for a triple option team over the course of one week, you can bet some serious coin on one thing; getting your scout team to replicate an efficient triple option attack is going to be nearly impossible.
Larry Fedora, now in his third year at North Carolina, faces Georgia Tech and Paul Johnson's vaunted triple option for a third time. So the past two years he's tried to get his defense ready for the disciplined triple option attack and has come to a conclusion; scout teams, no matter how talented, just can't fully prepare you for the real thing.
Based on that fact, Fedora won't be surprised if his defense starts slow on Saturday. The UNC head coach is winless in his first two meetings with Paul Johnson.
"There's no way that you're going to show them the speed of the game with the triple option in practice. You just won't."
"You can't get a scout team to run the triple option as quickly and efficiently as they do, so it takes some time at the beginning of a game to get acclimated to the speed of it."
"Hopefully it doesn't take too long though, because they're only going to have so many possessions."
It's always interesting to see how the first few drives go, and the adjustments that defensive coordinators make as the game progresses, so I'll have a close eye on this one when they kick off at 7pm EST on Saturday.