Sarkisian believes that if opponents are going to play a middle-field safety at 10 yards in response, “you better to able to cover a post route. “Like to me if I’m a defensive coordinator, I’m going into the game and I’m saying, ‘I got to stop the RPO so I’m going to have my low hole player, I gotta defend the run.’” “Where we have made way more hay this year - as an offense we averaged eight yards per play at Alabama - has been the play pass with the illusion of RPO,” Sarkisian said. “We have gotten more into signaling to that single receiver for route options, almost like you would in the quick game, but now we’re just totally doing it in RPO, so whether we’re signaling the exact route, or whether we’re alerting to a specific route that you don’t know what we’re alerting to, this stuff definitely comes into play,” Sarkisian said. In recent years, Sarkisian has made that play an option for the quarterback to alert to based on his pre-snap coverage read. Of the returning Texas receivers, redshirt junior Joshua Moore was the most effective running this run-pass option last season. In Atlanta, Sarkisian also used his tight end as the target on the glance route, so it’s a play that he’ll use to find matchups that he likes for different players. “And I don’t want to make this too simplistic, but it is important to know.” “We really give him an option to break to daylight,” Sarkisian said. To run the concept well, the Z receiver needs to make the right coverage read so he can adjust his route accordingly. Against Cover Two, the wide receiver has to wrap around the trapping cornerback. In other words, he has to win across the defender against man coverage.Īgainst Cover Three, he has to get into the window between zone defenders. The teaching point for the wide receiver is to break to daylight on the fourth outside step. If the strong safety is too high, then the quarterback hands the ball off.
The read is the Z receiver - if the strong safety is down, the quarterback hits the Z receiver. The second RPO that Sarkisian explained is the glance concept, one of the most popular RPOs in football.īecause Sarkisian wants the running game to maintain a high priority when running RPOs, he blocks with his receivers on the back side instead instead of running routes.
“We’re gonna throw a ball off of a leveraged corner who’s playing high and inside and get a completion.” “If they’re gonna play single safety, they’re gonna put one more in the box,” Sarkisian said. If the strong safety is high, the quarterback hands the ball off.Īs Sarkisian put it, it’s the “simplest form of what we do,” sometimes dressed up with motions and shifts. If the strong safety is low, the quarterback throws the six-yard speed out to the Z receiver. “When you think about Alabama, this is who we are,” Sarkisian said of RPOs. At that core of the scheme, however, it’s tagging pass options onto those base runs that forms the foundation of Sarkisian’s current offense. Three base running plays that Sarkisian mentioned shouldn’t come as a surprise - inside zone, outside zone, and power are all staples across football. The moment you say we’re gonna take away the run, our system is built to throw RPOs,” Sarkisian said during the clinic. If you’re gonna let us run the ball, then we will continue to run the ball. “We’re an RPO team that runs the football. With Sarkisian serving as the offensive coordinator for Alabama for the final time in Monday’s national championship game, it’s worth looking at some of those concepts to have a better understanding of what Sarkisian wants to accomplish and the plays he uses towards that goal. Before the 2020 season, new Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian appeared at a coaches clinic for an in-depth discussion of his offensive philosophy, how it’s changed over the years, and how he builds his offense around run-pass options.ĭuring that clinic, Sarkisian described how he builds his offenses, illustrating two one-pass option plays, two play-action concepts, and two drop-back concepts.
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