The Petrino family coaching tree has a pretty simple offensive philosophy. Don’t get caught up in shoehorning a team into a pro-style, option or spread offense.

Just feed the studs.

“Find the best way to get the best player the ball,” Paul Petrino, younger brother of Louisville head coach Bobby Petrino, said.

At Louisville, that’s quarterback Lamar Jackson, the Heisman Trophy front-runner who has accounted for more touchdowns (25) than 96 percent of the 128 FBS teams. The best way was to shuffle through a part of the playbook rarely used the past decade by Bobby Petrino, who has relied mostly on traditional NFL-style pocket passers.

It’s not quite the Michael Vick offense, the design Bobby earmarked for the quarterback he thought he was inheriting after taking the Atlanta Falcons job before the 2007 season. Vick could mimic Jackson’s sandlot acrobatics, but the faster and bigger NFL defenses are not as forgiving when targeting a quarterback on the loose. An NFL quarterback couldn’t duplicate Jackson’s 15 rushes per game.

Some of the option plays, diagrammed runs and sprint-out passes are similar, though. Dabo Swinney, who will coach his No. 5 Clemson team against No. 3 Louisville on Saturday, has called Jackson the right-handed Vick.

“There would have been similar things, things we would have done with Mike,” said Paul, who was an assistant on that Falcons team. “... There’s a lot of different ways to put the defense in a disadvantage when you have a quarterback that can run like that.”

Paul, currently the coach at Idaho but who has served nine seasons as an assistant to Bobby, said you don’t format your quarterback to the offense. If an undeniable talent like Jackson comes around, the offense should work around him.

In 13 seasons as a head coach, Bobby Petrino has relied almost exclusively on classic dropback passers. For his first full recruiting class in his second stint at Louisville, in 2015, he was only interested in “home-run threats” as both a passer and runner. It was a break from Bobby’s mold, but there was a foundation for a dual-threat option in his lengthy offensive database.

This season, Jackson’s 61 rush attempts leads all Power 5 quarterbacks, and his 526 rushing yards leads all Power 5 players. Jackson’s athleticism has stonewalled defensive coordinators scrambling for ways to stop the zone-read, as the Cardinals rank fifth nationally in rushing yards on those designs. The Cardinals made then-No. 2 Florida State submit after a deluge of zone-reads.

“He’s always had the zone-read in the system but he’s just expanded it,” Paul said. “... One of the best things Bobby has always done is we have a big menu on offense. It’s about what the quarterback can do. You’re never going to pass up an unbelievable talent. You adjust.”

Before his 2014 return to Louisville, Bobby Petrino's previous five college quarterbacks were largely immobile. From 2005-2013, only one of his quarterbacks finished a season with a positive rushing total (Brian Brohm, 45 yards in 2006). All but one of Petrino’s quarterbacks dating back to his first season were drafted, though, and four went within the first four rounds.

Bobby defends Jackson’s ability as a passer, but the sophomore is still evolving in the pocket. His completion percentage inside the pocket of 62.0 ranks 40th among Power 5 quarterbacks.

So Bobby has called on Jackson’s legs more than he ever has before with a quarterback. Jackson throws two passes for every rush, a ratio among the lowest nationally. Bobby said his first Louisville signal-caller, Stefan LeFors, was a dual-threat quarterback before the term was popularized -- “a great, great runner with the ball,” Bobby said -- but he never rushed more than 71 times in a season.

Quarterbacks who excelled as runners were never a big part of Bobby’s offenses, but it was part of his own style growing up. Mentored by his father, Bob Sr., Bobby grew up on option football.

“Bob [Jr.] threw the ball, but our dad was an option coach. We grew up around running quarterbacks,” Paul said. “That’s how we started out in this profession. We were running the option in the backyard as little kids.

“He hadn’t run that a bunch as a head coach, but he’s known about it forever.”