Here you go

Strait from the guy that created the pistol formation. 6th and 7th paragraph talks about how Clemson has struggled in short yardage situations, has a very inexperienced OL, and the pistol is a way to aid these things. Nevada HC even says these were reasons he created the offense. Sounds like what you were talking about with the smaller teams running the option to me. Let's put this thing to bed:

http://m.tigernet.com/m/view/story.do?id=10727