In the land of the spread and the era of the pass, new offenses seem to pop up everywhere.

One of the more unique ones, though, comes to college football from Nevada and it's called the pistol.

Well, Indiana coach Bill Lynch saw the pistol, liked the pistol and has been implementing the pistol to this year's Hoosiers.

"We needed to get more multiple is what I wanted," Lynch said. "We just couldn't live in the spread. We got to the point where people had caught up with it and we needed to go to the next thing."

It might have helped, too, that the team's best spread quarterback, Kellen Lewis, went from signal caller to pass catcher to spectator for IU games this season as he'll play at Valdosta State.

Lynch liked the pistol, though, because it still has elements of the spread with more of a run game despite that every spread is different - ask Michigan, which runs a lot out of its spread.

"We just thought it was compatible with our personnel, number one, and that it waas similar to the spread and it was shotgun snap," Lynch said. "So we could have more of a power running game, a little more of a play-action pass with tight ends and still be able to jump in and out of the spread.

"That's the biggest reason."

Michael Rothstein covers University of Michigan basketball for annarbor.com. He can be reached at (734) 623-2558 or at michaelrothstein@annarbor.com.