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re: Saban: It's virtually impossible to come up with a defensive scheme to stop RPOs
Posted on 6/2/17 at 1:30 am to Bench McElroy
Posted on 6/2/17 at 1:30 am to Bench McElroy
Of course it's hard for the defense to key in on a play pre-snap when even the offense doesn't know whether or not a play is going to be a run or a pass. You can't scheme to stop what the offense doesn't know and therefore isn't giving away ahead of time.
That said, it often goes unmentioned that choosing to run an RPO heavy offense also limits OLs and RBs and makes their jobs a bit more difficult because they don't know who will wind up with the ball either.
On a regular play it forces the RB to adjust and wait which slows him down. He can't approach the play fully committed to a run or a block and he can't approach a run nearly as fast as he can when the play is known. It can also lead to disaster when an inexperienced RB is forced to play and misreads the exchange.
The OL is forced to operate nearly blind to the play going on around them and no longer knows everything pre-snap which can and often does cause more errors and more missed assignments. Like RB this ups the learning curve for younger players and makes it all the more difficult for an inexperienced player to know where he's supposed to be and what he should be doing as the play unfolds. It forces offensive players to think about what is happening around them and makes it harder to simply just act.
RPOs giveth and taketh away. They eliminate a lot of pre-snap knowledge from both sides as compared to the knowledge both sides often have in pro-style offense.
Ultimately what that means for a defensive coach is that he can no longer say when you see X lined up like this do Y and when you see A do B. Instead players have to observe, think, and make decisions on the fly to the conditions around them. That makes it far more difficult for a coach to sit down a week ahead of time and dream up a way of shutting down the opponent based upon scheme and instead puts a lot of decision making on the players shoulders. It moves football strategy from something you can plan out ahead of time, practice all week, and then simply execute on game day and turns it into something that both players and coaches must react to and come up with as it happening.
That said, it often goes unmentioned that choosing to run an RPO heavy offense also limits OLs and RBs and makes their jobs a bit more difficult because they don't know who will wind up with the ball either.
On a regular play it forces the RB to adjust and wait which slows him down. He can't approach the play fully committed to a run or a block and he can't approach a run nearly as fast as he can when the play is known. It can also lead to disaster when an inexperienced RB is forced to play and misreads the exchange.
The OL is forced to operate nearly blind to the play going on around them and no longer knows everything pre-snap which can and often does cause more errors and more missed assignments. Like RB this ups the learning curve for younger players and makes it all the more difficult for an inexperienced player to know where he's supposed to be and what he should be doing as the play unfolds. It forces offensive players to think about what is happening around them and makes it harder to simply just act.
RPOs giveth and taketh away. They eliminate a lot of pre-snap knowledge from both sides as compared to the knowledge both sides often have in pro-style offense.
Ultimately what that means for a defensive coach is that he can no longer say when you see X lined up like this do Y and when you see A do B. Instead players have to observe, think, and make decisions on the fly to the conditions around them. That makes it far more difficult for a coach to sit down a week ahead of time and dream up a way of shutting down the opponent based upon scheme and instead puts a lot of decision making on the players shoulders. It moves football strategy from something you can plan out ahead of time, practice all week, and then simply execute on game day and turns it into something that both players and coaches must react to and come up with as it happening.
1
Posted on 6/2/17 at 5:31 am to Prof
quote:
Ultimately what that means for a defensive coach is that he can no longer say when you see X lined up like this do Y and when you see A do B. Instead players have to observe, think, and make decisions on the fly to the conditions around them.
This isn't even true anymore. What Saban is saying is that it makes every decision wrong for the targeted player.
The read is based on the OL. When they go downfield, the defense has to read run. The RPO makes this wrong under the current rule. The other option is for the defense to read pass every time and surrender 5-6 yards on the ground without much resistance every play.
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