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Swinging gate. 

I forgot about N'Western using it.  

The great Randy Walker. I went to Miami when he was there and dated a friend of his daughter.

Balanced spread, which is not a choice.

I'd love to see somebody run the single-wing and succeed with it, though.

this, kinda. i'd like a mix of pro set and spread, with a balance playcalling (not necessarily balanced play results). i like the offenses we see today a lot, but some commit so much to spread passing that they can't run when needed. i still want that capability.

also would heavily depend on personnel available. taking last 2 years of bama roster, i'd lean spread much more. if it's 2011 bama roster, much more pro set.

when something is working, that's what you do.

football is cyclical too. offenses develop new trends, defenses adjust to stop it, offense changes to take advantage of new defensive weaknesses, so forth...

Several of you have specified that it would depend on your program strength.  

What I don't understand is that if there are offenses that minimize talent disparities, then an elite program running that type of offense would be unstoppable.  
In previous conversations, recruiting has been cited as an issue.  But if Alabama suddenly started running the option, I don't see their recruiting suffering at all.  Their elite WR recruits would become wingbacks.  Now, there may be a fear that they'd no longer be an NFL factory for some positions.....but I'm not sure that would actually occur.  

If a certain method is a great equalizer, then elite programs should implement it.

Several of you have specified that it would depend on your program strength. 

What I don't understand is that if there are offenses that minimize talent disparities, then an elite program running that type of offense would be unstoppable. 
In previous conversations, recruiting has been cited as an issue.  But if Alabama suddenly started running the option, I don't see their recruiting suffering at all.  Their elite WR recruits would become wingbacks.  Now, there may be a fear that they'd no longer be an NFL factory for some positions.....but I'm not sure that would actually occur. 

If a certain method is a great equalizer, then elite programs should implement it.

And I've argued many times WHY this doesn't make sense. If a strategy introduces higher variance, it can be a negative in a sport where one loss a season makes your road to the CFP difficult, and two losses in a season are almost assured to exclude you. 

For a school like Purdue, a high-variance offense that has "higher highs" but also "lower lows" might lead to a situation where it nets you 2-3 additional wins per year over a low-variance offense, but also then loses you a game you should win because it's just not clicking. 

For a team like Alabama or OSU which is legitimately expected to be better talent-wise than at least 11 of their regular-season opponents, they don't have a 2-3 game upside from a high-variance offense, but they definitely still have the downside. 

When you have the talent you want an offense that minimizes turnovers and three-and-outs / stalled drives. You want to stay ahead of down-and-distance, trust your talent, and wear down the opponent over 4 quarters. IMHO that is incompatible with pass-heavy spread attacks. 

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One caveat... It's my bias / prior belief that variance is higher in these offenses. I don't have empirical evidence of this. So my argument is based on a premise that I think makes logical sense, but could be completely wrong. 

I get all that, we've discussed that before.  
But if there's something that outmanned teams do in order to 'sneak' closer to upset victories, then if the favored programs do those same things, it will always negate any advantage sought out by the underdog.

Running the option is a widely accepted offense that allows outmanned programs (ie service academies) to do better than they would otherwise.  
So if an elite program, with all its advantages - talent, coaching, etc - decided to commit to it, too...how would a team sneak any closer to upsetting them?

If controlling the clock to limit your opponent's scoring opportunities is good for Army and tilts things slightly in their favor running the option, then it would similarly help Alabama's odds of winning, too.  If preparing for an option team within the framework of one week in your season is tricky, isn't that an advantage a Clemson program should employ? 

It's about maintaining that disparity and not allowing anything to shorten it.  Keeping your opponent at arm's length by employing their own ways.