Saban: It's virtually impossible to come up with a defensive scheme to stop RPOs

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The man most synonymous with defense and dominance in college football says he’s not wasting any of his time this summer trying to scheme against the sport’s run-pass option plays.

“I don’t think there’s any answer to RPOs,” Alabama head coach Nick Saban said.

Executed correctly, it’s almost impossible to defend because the targeted defender can be made wrong no matter which decision he makes.

“You can run a running play, and the offensive line blocks a running play, which the defensive player keys a run,” Saban said, “and the quarterback sits there and does this (mimicking handoff) and then throws the ball, because the safety doesn’t come down or the safety does come down or whatever, there is no solution to that.”

There is a magic bullet that could kill the RPOs, and that’s a rule change that would make it illegal for offensive linemen to be past the line of scrimmage on a passing play, but no defensive coaches in the SEC expect to get that kind of help. (College football allows linemen to be 3 yards past the line of scrimmage when the ball is thrown.)

“If they’re not willing to change that…,” Saban said with his voice trailing off as he shrugged. “But on the other hand, it's exciting. We score like 40 more points a game than what we used to. Our 2011 team gave up eight points a game. The best defense in the country gives up twice that now and it's going to continue to go that way. It’s very difficult to play defensive football when you can't key the difference between runs and passes."

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