re: RPO and a dream I have.

quote:

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Very rarely is it a zone read with a pass option. Auburn used to do something like this until the refs really started emphasizing O linemen blocking downfield on pass plays.

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While it is possible to have a QB-run option on an RPO there are two simultaneous reasons why it isn't common and don't want (or can't, or shouldn't) do it often:

1. If you are running an RPO, you necessarily are involving the RB- either faking or handing off. And that RB needs to be at the mesh point. One, to do this and then turn and the QB run is a helluva long time static at that mesh point. But most importantly you just took away THE advantage of a read-option which is having +1 blocking at the gap for the QB to run to because that RB is now unable to block (if he could, the fake is going to suck arse and that's not an RPO). You can use the RB as a decoy, as in Malzahn, but that's not an RPO either. That's a zone read with a pass option (probably on a bootleg).

2. You also lose the benefit of causing a key member of the defense being out of position (which is who you are reading) and the hesitation that caused. RPO is quick strike to where the defense vacated- and that is the read. It can be a safety, end, LB, or whomever has control over that zone defensively. But by combining all 3 (RB-run, QB-pass, QB-run) you are going to give the defense too much time to react. Play may still work, but you lost the advantage, reaction time, that the RPO gave you. The beauty of an RPO, without a QB run option, is that you can attack a single zone. You pick somebody and pick on them. If they attack the line of scrimmage, you go over them with the pass; they cover a zone you run with the RB with leverage. You can put a single player, or single gap, in a no win situation. And when they move somebody, pre-snap or post-snap, to help him out of that no win situation you attack the spot they moved from. Which is going to be another type of read more than likely with your WR route trees.

And last but not least, don't forget about the OL. Yes there is the blocking downfield but I'm talking about basic blocking. If you are attacking a zone and a player with the RPO, let's say OLB to the field side- you are either going to run at him with the RB or pass over/beside him. Your OL is also attacking that zone. Presumably you aren't going to plan on running your QB to that zone as a 3rd option... why have a 3rd option going to the same place as your other options- you would just give it to the RB. So now to run the QB he's going somewhere else. But the OL was blocking elsewhere. Running your QB where you don't block is not a recipe for success.