Alabama football: Saban no fan of RPO rules but Tide will use RPO schemes.

Alabama football has been burned by certain RPO schemes. Saban says with the current rules defenses have no answers for them. So the Tide will use the same offensive advantage.

More specifically, Alabama football past defensive struggles are with one facet of the RPO arsenal. The bane for Tide and other defenses is when the RPO looks to be a run and a beat or two later becomes a pass.

All the heavy RPO teams use the “pop pass” that lures the defense into reading run before the QB zips a pass to an uncovered receiver. Ole Miss has had good success with this wrinkle and Auburn’s Nick Marshall was adept at running it.

Alabama Crimson Tide Football

The Kick-Six TD at Auburn in 2013 would not have won the game, if not for an earlier play. The TD that tied the game came on a pass after a Nick Marshall scramble. An Auburn offensive lineman was four yards upfield on the play. The Tide D read run and collapsed on Marshall who then threw over the heads of the Tide defenders to Sammi Coates for an easy game-tying TD.

How does the defense get fooled? Defensive players are taught to read the offensive linemen. If the O-Line goes much beyond three yards upfield, the play by rule is either a run or a pass behind the line of scrimmage.

Technically, in the 2013 game, the officials missed the call. The Auburn play should have drawn a penalty and the TD disallowed.

Nick Saban and other defensive minded coaches tried to get the college rule changed to match the NFL rule. In college the O-Line gets a three-yard buffer, In the NFL it is only one-yard.

Offensive minded coaches led by Gus Malzahn, Hugh Freeze and Rick Rodriquez fought hard against modifying the rule to the NFL standard of one-yard. In the spread-happy era, the offensive argument won.

Charlie Potter of Bama Online reported on Saban’s response to a recent question about defending RPO’s.

"“I don’t think there’s any answer to RPOs … When you can run a running play, aight, and the offensive line blocks a running play — which a defensive player keys a run and a pass — but it’s a running play and the quarterback sits there and does this (motions a fake handoff) and then throws the ball … There is no solution to that, other than you can’t go downfield three and a half yards to block, which is the rule in the NFL”"

Saban does not like such football chicanery “aight” and we could not agree more. In our mind, the greatest assessment of and challenge to the Malzahn version of Auburn football was Scott Cochran during the 2011 game.

The Tide won that game 42-14 as one after another Auburn sample of Malzahn’s offensive genius was stuffed by the Tide defense. After one such “stuffing” Cochrane yelled across the field, “Run another trick play bitch.”

We doubt Nick Saban has a much different opinion of the Malzahn offense than Cochrane. Nick does have a more pragmatic response. Here is another quote provided by Charlie Potter.

"“I mean our 2011 team gave up eight points a game. The best defense in the country gave up twice that much now, aight, so it’s going to continue to go that. Very difficult to play defensive football when you can’t key the difference between a run and a pass …Whatever the rule is, we’ll do it, too, … We’ll run running plays that we throw passes, just like everybody else.”"

For fans expecting the Brain Daboll offense to be heavy on smash-mouth football, don’t forget Alabama football has a RPO capable QB. Saban will utilize any weapon afforded by the rules. Or should we say inconsistency in the rules due to officiating?

Next: Will 2017 Tide be 'Run Daboll' or 'Air Daboll' or something else?

Even with our lack of appreciation for Gus Malzahn, we can appreciate great players from Auburn teams. The Nick Marshall pass play discussed above was a success more because of what Marshall did than what the officials did not do. Marshall sold the run fake by carrying the ball in his left hand. When the Tide defense bit on the fake, he quickly switched the ball to his right to make the throw.