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

quote:

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They said the same thing about the Wishbone 45 years ago.

And 10-15 years later, someone figured out how to stop it.

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Jimmy Johnson figured out that you stop the wishbone with overwhelming speed. He completely neutered the great Oklahoma teams of the mid 1980s doing this.

The RPOs are a different animal because of the passing aspect. The wishbone didn't have a passing option on every play unless it was a called pass play. The difference between RPOs and the wishbone is that with the wishbone, defenses had to defend sideline to sideline on every play. With RPOs, they have to do this as well, but they also have to cover receivers downfield.