This article will contain my reasons the "RPO Offense" or "RPO System" does not exist.
This was written on October 17, 2020 after Florida State upset #5 North Carolina.
North Carolina dominated the first several weeks of this season with their RPO heavy offense that gives them the ability to constantly make the defense wrong. Notice how I said that, RPO heavy offense. I did not say their “RPO Offense" or their “RPO System” because those do not exist. There is no such thing as an "RPO system," and here’s why.
DEFINING AN RPO
First, let’s identify what an RPO is. RPO, as many of us know, stands for run-pass option. RPOs are a concept or tag that go onto run plays where the quarterback has the option to give the run concept or throw the pass concept based on a certain reaction by the defense. There are a million ways you can design an RPO that vary in the route combinations, the run concept it’s tagged on, what defender you read, or what area of the field you read. However, at the very core of RPOs, what are they? The answer is in its name, an RPO is a form of option football. There exist multiple types of options in football. Some of these include read-option, speed-option, triple-option, and RPOs. All of these have one thing in common, they want to put a defender in conflict. These concepts all want to make a defender choose which of multiple threats to address and then punish them for that choice. With this in mind, let's think about the standard read-option.
WHAT YOU NEED TO MAKE RPOs WORK
Inside Zone Read is about the simplest read-option play I can think of. The Offensive Line and running back are running Inside Zone and the quarterback is reading the backside end man on the line of scrimmage. If that end man tries to go stop the running back from running Inside Zone, the quarterback will pull the football and run around him. If that end man tries to attack the quarterback, the quarterback will give the ball to the running back and it's like he was never even there. Now I’m going to ask this: If Tom Brady were running Inside Zone Read, are you afraid of him pulling that ball? Tommy can still sling the rock, but if he wants to pull the football and take off I don’t really care. Remember what I said about conflict earlier? When I think about Tom Brady running a read-option, that defender is not in conflict. Tom Brady is no threat running the ball, therefore there is no conflict and that defensive end should take the running back ten times out of ten. Now let’s flip the script and put Lamar Jackson in the backfield. That defensive end has to make a choice this time. Would he rather have Lamar Jackson pull that football, or force him to hand it off to somebody else? Defensive coordinators get to make the choice based on what's best for their system, but they have to make a choice nonetheless. As the offense, we get to punish you either way. Are you going to take Lamar out? Fine, we’ll hand off the Inside Zone and it’s like you never existed. Go for the running back and Lamar will make somebody look silly. What am I getting at by all of this? Option football only works based off of conflict. There is no conflict in read-option if your quarterback isn’t a running threat to the defense. For an RPO, there is no conflict if your team cannot run the ball. If the mesh doesn't scare them, a defense can drop into windows that will stop your RPO while kicking your ass five on five in the box to stop the run. This is why the "RPO offense" doesn’t exist. You can’t have RPOs if you can’t run the ball. Therefore, you can't base your system off of RPOs when they themselves require something else in order to work.
Offenses such as North Carolina, Virginia Tech, and Villanova thrive off of the RPO game because they have a sound running system that serves as the basis of their offense. Not only this, but they have the ability to throw over you with play-action should you cheat too many players up to the shallow zones. These systems look like this when over-simplified: Run the ball until their defenders are influenced to help stop it. Next, throw RPOs to punish vacant zones when their defenders fill on run-action until they play more man coverage and/or overload the underneath zones. Then, throw the ball deep off of play-action to take advantage of man coverage or one/two deep structures. These systems never get off the ground without the ability to run the ball. You need to have a sound offensive system first that you compliment with RPOs to make better, not the other way around.
WHY I MADE THE ARTICLE
I made this article to address an issue that I, and others, see where coaches try to get too fancy with their RPOs and reads before they even think of how they will attack the defense. If you want to start including RPOs into your system, step one is to identify how you're going to go after the defense up front. You can RPO off of any running concept, so put in a running game that works well for your athletes or that you know you can coach well. Next, take whatever quick game you throw well and tag it to your run game. Identify the way a defense stops that route or tag in defenses you commonly see and make that the read key. As you get better on the ground and with what RPOs you have in, you slowly expand your RPO arsenal to exploit defenses when they cheat to stop your run.
Always remember, it's all based off of the run game. RPOs are just an extension of your offense, not the core of it.
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