parsh wrote:
If everyone didn't have the play .. unfair strategy.
If everyone did but the play was used over and over .. gamesmanship. With the caveat that after you played a game, your team should be 100% familiar in the future and can defense it league wide. Making it moot .. because in reality, your team better dang well better know it and recognize it.
someone better tell College football not to use RPO(run-pass-option)
link =
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-most-dangerous-play-in-college-football-1483887869in case it doesnt work
here is the whole link copied and pasted
btw read what is typed in BOLD
The Most Dangerous Play in College Football
Clemson and Alabama both exploit an unstoppable play: the run-pass option. The only problem is it may break the rules of football.
The most devastating play in college football combines the game’s most effective offensive schemes to produce something even more potent. It’s a play that upends years of football orthodoxy and only exists because of a polarizing rule change that has been slowly tearing the sport apart. And it’s a play that either No. 1 Alabama or No. 2 Clemson will use to win the College Football Playoff national championship on Monday night.
The play is called the “run-pass option.” But it’s better known inside the sport—for better and worse—by an abbreviation that has become part of every coach’s lexicon: the “RPO.”
Those three letters explain why Alabama coach Nick Saban reluctantly overhauled his offense and had to retool his defense this season. They also explain why Clemson is playing for the title for the second consecutive year.
The only problem with the RPO is also the reason it’s so unstoppable: It may break the rules of football. And the increasing reliance on this system across the sport has NCAA referees scrambling to officiate properly, offensive coaches racing to keep up with the latest strategy and defensive coaches tearing out what’s left of their hair.
In this RPO from earlier this season, Alabama quarterback Jalen Hurts reads the defense and decides not to hand it off. But with the Crimson Tide linemen blocking downfield, Texas A&M expects a run—leaving Calvin Ridley open for the four-yard touchdown pass.
In this RPO from earlier this season, Alabama quarterback Jalen Hurts reads the defense and decides not to hand it off. But with the Crimson Tide linemen blocking downfield, Texas A&M expects a run—leaving Calvin Ridley open for the four-yard touchdown pass.
It’s because of the way Clemson and Alabama use the RPO to their advantage that their rematch is more than a mere national championship. It’s a showcase of what modern college football has become.
The easiest way to understand the RPO is as the latest and most lethal evolution of the classic triple-option, said Mike Kuchar, the co-founder of X&O Labs, a football strategy firm. The triple option gives the quarterback three choices: hand the ball to the fullback; run the ball himself; or pitch the ball to the running back. The pitch was always the riskiest of the three options.
The RPO solves that problem. In recent seasons—and especially this year—college coaches realized that an obscure rule change had paved the way for them to replace the pitch with something more efficient: a pass.
This is such a new development that most college players never encountered the RPO when they were in high school. But it wasn’t long before even the most conservative coaches were furiously rewriting their playbooks to incorporate this innovation with the spread-offense schemes that had already made offenses more dynamic than ever.
In the 43-37 Ole Miss win against Alabama last year, the Rebels ran this RPO that resulted in a 73-yard touchdown pass. As quarterback Chad Kelly approaches the line of scrimmage, and with an Ole Miss lineman more than three yards downfield, Alabama defenders moved to defend the run, leaving the receiver open. After the game, Nick Saban sent the play to the SEC to review for an ineligible receiver downfield.
In the 43-37 Ole Miss win against Alabama last year, the Rebels ran this RPO that resulted in a 73-yard touchdown pass. As quarterback Chad Kelly approaches the line of scrimmage, and with an Ole Miss lineman more than three yards downfield, Alabama defenders moved to defend the run, leaving the receiver open. After the game, Nick Saban sent the play to the SEC to review for an ineligible receiver downfield.
“You take your best runs and your best passes,” Kuchar said, “and you marry them.”
The RPO has changed the way football is played because it destroys the ages-old division between passing plays and running plays. That’s also why it’s so controversial: There are different rules for passes and runs. On passing plays, offensive linemen can’t block more than three yards down the field until the ball is thrown. But on running plays, that’s perfectly legal.
The RPO, however, is a running play and a passing play. And that deception capitalizes on a defensive principle that players are taught from pee-wee football. By rule, downfield blockers signal a running play, and defenders can stop worrying about a pass once they see 300-pound offensive linemen barreling at them.
Nick Saban’s team now relies on the RPO even though he’s been one of its outspoken critics.
Nick Saban’s team now relies on the RPO even though he’s been one of its outspoken critics. PHOTO: KEVIN C. COX/GETTY IMAGES
Now, they don’t know what to do when they see that stampede of blockers while the ball-carrier can still throw to receivers—a huge advantage for the offense.
“The key to offense is being able to add a player into a play who’s unaccounted for by the defense,” said Ohio State cornerbacks coach Kerry Coombs. “That’s the game now.”
RPO critics say this type of play is effective not only because it tricks the defense, but also because it capitalizes on the referees’ difficulty penalizing linemen who are farther than three yards downfield when a run turns into a pass. The NCAA made the rule a point of emphasis this season, and that only revealed how often these calls were missed: ineligible-receiver-downfield penalties were flagged 90% more in 2016 than 2014, according to Stats LLC.
RPOs entered the mainstream because of a 2009 rule change that allowed linemen to block three yards downfield on a pass. But some coaches were horrified when they saw how that upended the game. They believed that blocking that far down the field shouldn’t be a part of football.
In response, the NCAA nearly changed the rule before this season to one yard, the same as the NFL. And then so many coaches protested that the amendment was scrapped.
On this RPO, Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson opts not to give the ball to his running back and runs to his right. Watson, who had already run for two touchdowns in the game, is supported with linemen downfield if he chooses to run. But the Virginia Tech defenders go after him, leaving Hunter Renfrow open for a 15-yard touchdown pass that proved to be the game-winning score for Clemson in the ACC Championship.
On this RPO, Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson opts not to give the ball to his running back and runs to his right. Watson, who had already run for two touchdowns in the game, is supported with linemen downfield if he chooses to run. But the Virginia Tech defenders go after him, leaving Hunter Renfrow open for a 15-yard touchdown pass that proved to be the game-winning score for Clemson in the ACC Championship.
“You would have thought you were taking the first-born child of the coaches that run these offenses,” said Rogers Redding, the NCAA’s officiating coordinator.
There is no team that has adjusted to the RPO era as much as Alabama—and for good reason. It cost the Crimson Tide the national championship following the 2013 season, said Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher, who won the national championship instead.
Alabama missed the title game that year because it lost to Auburn in the 2013 Iron Bowl—the game that was decided by the famous “Kick Six.”
But the sharpest minds in college football remember that rare Crimson Tide loss because of what happened a few plays earlier: Auburn tied the game on a run-pass option in which quarterback Nick Marshall threw a touchdown pass right before he reached the line of scrimmage. Alabama fans still inspect footage of the play like it’s the Zapruder film and insist a penalty should have been called.
Auburn’s Nick Marshall connects with Sammie Coates for a touchdown in the 2013 Iron Bowl.
The Crimson Tide got used to seeing that sort of play. The last team to beat Alabama, Ole Miss, relies on RPOs. So does another team that gashed Alabama: Clemson in last year’s national championship.
Saban’s team now relies on the RPO even though he’s been one of its outspoken critics.
But the coach who’s chasing his fifth national championship in eight years eventually realized it was lunacy not to exploit the rules like everyone else.He downsized his defense in recent seasons to adapt to RPO-heavy offenses. And this season he embraced the RPO on offense by elevating true freshman Jalen Hurts to starting quarterback. Hurts ran for 891 yards—more than every Alabama quarterback under Saban combined.
If there are any teams that can stop the RPO, though, it’s the teams with the national championship at stake. Alabama’s marauding defense is one of the best in recent history. Clemson’s defense practices against Deshaun Watson, who represents a new breed of college quarterback: not only a mobile passer but also an RPO master.
“It’s our mini-lab,” said Tigers defensive coordinator Brent Venables. “Every day we find out what’s good and what isn’t.”
