Outside of secondary coach Trent Miles and defensive line assistant Ulima Afoa, the only time the current staff has seen it has been this week on film.
"Triple option is triple option, but this kind spreads you out all over the field," UH defensive coordinator Don Lindsey said before yesterday's practice.
"It utilizes a little bit more of the field and isolates you more. In its day, there was nothing better than the pure wishbone. I was fortunate to see all the best ones run it.
"From Barry Switzer at Oklahoma to Emory Bellard at Texas A&M, who invented it. You can't get that anymore. The game has changed.
"The reason most teams use a scheme like this is because they know they aren't going to get the quality tailback or the best drop-back passer. But it gives schools a different look, and that can cause you problems."
Over the years a common misconception was that, because Hawaii ran the spread attack, its defense knew everything about it.
But such was not the case.
The only time Hawaii's defense faced the option was in the final period of practice during the two-minute drill.
"And even so, we don't really have that many players on the team who faced it last year," Lindsey said. "And most of those guys are in the secondary.
"The key to defensing the option is playing responsibly and understanding the nuances of the offense. You can't pursue too hard, or they'll cut back on you. And you have to make sure that all three options are defensed - starting with the fullback."
Most coaches will tell you that life in the option begins and ends with the fullback. Much like the boxing adage - if you go for the body the hands will fall - stopping the fullback usually takes all the punch out of the option.
Fullback Steve Hookfin will be taking most of the body blows for Ohio. Last week, he carried the football 10 times for 67 yards and two touchdowns.
Despite rushing for 668 yards last year as a freshman, the 6-foot-1, 215-pounder never made it into the end zone.
That is not a problem for sophomore quarterback Kareem Wilson, whom Lindsey believes is key. The 5-8, 200-pound signal caller rushed for 893 yards and 10 touchdowns last year. He scored three in one half in Ohio's 44-14 season-opening win over Akron eight days ago.
"He's perfect for this offense," Lindsey said. "You can't bring him down with an arm tackle and he's so short, he'll duck right under you if you don't watch it."
UH offensive coordinator Guy Benjamin doesn't have a quarterback who fits neatly into his combination West Coast offense/veer option attack.
At this point, he's more concerned with the mental makeup of the Rainbows rather than just the Xs and Os. Last week's last-second loss to Boston College has been difficult to shake.
"If I could change one thing, it would be to get these guys believing they could win at the end of the game," Benjamin said. "I didn't sense a feeling that they felt they deserved to win last Saturday night.
"It was like they were hanging on and please don't let me make a mistake. It's almost like they lost the belief in themselves, and that's one reason I didn't want to get conservative or act like we were just hanging on."
Unlike last week's eight-man defensive front by Boston College, Benjamin expects to see four-man looks and even odd five-man fronts in an effort to stop the run.
As important as the pass routes are in the West Coast attack, Hawaii has to do a better job of running the football tomorrow night, or all bets are off.
"They like to use slanting fronts to take away the running game," Benjamin said. "We didn't run the ball well enough last week, but in all fairness, it was an eight-man front.
"We need to eliminate the mistakes we made at the end. If we hadn't made those, we could have survived and won the game. Those are things I don't want to see this weekend."