The game of football is constantly evolving. Offensive coaches come up with new schemes and the ones that work become the job of defensive coaches to combat.
An en vogue offense that is currently being used at Montana State is the run-pass option, commonly referred to as RPO. In a way, it’s a hybrid of old school decision-making attack from the olden days The RPO is a rendition of the option and triple option, but run out of the spread…with amended rules that allows linemen to fire off the ball on pretty much every RPO
Back in the day, quarterbacks would not only call plays in the huddle with little input from coaches, but they would at times draw them up in the dirt. Quarterbacks and coaches would primarily discuss what plays to run when their defense was on the field or during timeouts.
At some point, as technology grew and coaches got sick of being blamed for their offense’s poor performance, a new way was discovered and offensive play calling became the sole proprietorship of the coaches. A player, usually a wide receiver, would get a play from the coach, run to the huddle and pass it along to the quarterback, who would then inform the team and the change was complete.
These days, RPO and other read-option offenses give a basic framework to the offense and it’s up to the quarterback to make the decision after taking the snap. Just who is going to end up with the ball? Will it be a run or a pass?
Not all observers – thanks to the previous era – are aware of this subtlety and hence, the ‘fire the coach’ lines start getting mumbled amongst fans & followers.
Many Montana State observers founds themselves wondering about the play-calling in MSU’s 24-21 loss to Idaho. Understandably so, since the Bobcats have one of the most prolific offenses in the nation and couldn’t muster a first down in their first three possessions and didn’t move the chains until the 1:33 mark of the first half.
Play calls are just part of the process. However, the decision in RPO, which MSU runs about 75% of the time, is ultimately made by the quarterback.
At MSU’s most recent press conference, head coach Brent Vigen was asked about the teams thought process in passing the ball on the first play of its first two possessions and the first play of the last set of downs on its last possession.
On the first play of the first possession quarterback Tommy Mellott threw the ball out of bounds as he ran to his right. On the first play of the second possession, Mellott threw a pass to the left about even with the line of scrimmage that was dropped by wide receiver Taco Dowler.
“Well, they’re both RPOs,” Vigen responded immediately regarding the first two plays. “(Quarterback) Tommy (Mellott) throws the first one away. It’s a pull that he probably should’ve just handed off. Second one, ideally we make that play and we make the (defender) miss and whether we get 4-5 or whatever those throws in the RPO game need to be an extension of your run game and obviously neither of those provided that and we were in second-and-10 in both of those instances and really couldn’t get ourselves moving in those first two drives at all.”
On the first play of the last set of downs at the Vandal 18 after MSU had been moving the ball rapidly with five straight mid-range completions by Mellott to Treyton Pickering, Clevan Thomas, Jr. and Ty McCullouch, Mellott threw a sideline pass to Thomas that fell incomplete.
“The first-and-10 call was a run-pass type of call,” Vigen said of Mellott’s decision to pass. “(The Vandals) look presented a one-on-one and we went to Clevan on that play and we didn’t complete it. It’s easy to go back and say on second-and-10 we should’ve run the ball. We didn’t. We got sacked and then you create a situation where you have to throw the ball on third down.
“I know there was a thought on first down. There was a call that could’ve gone either way. You can’t go back and change what we call. In the future could we treat that a little bit differently, I suppose we could and we might.”
Indeed, that might occur with upstart Northern Arizona, 3-2 in the Big Sky, coming to Bozeman almost exactly year after nearly pulling off an big upset in week nine in Flagstaff. MSU drove nearly 80 yards, mostly on the heels of a clutch third down scramble and pass from Mellott to Dowler, to set up a game-winning field goal in a 41-38 victory that proved pivotal in MSU winning the Big Sky Conference title.
