Will Muschamp explains the downside of RPOs
For the past several seasons, RPOs have been the latest trend in football everyone wants to learn more about, and just as many are trying to find ways to either implement it, or stop it.
With South Carolina in their bye week, Will Muschamp shared during his weekly Carolina Calls radio show that with the extra time on their hands without an opponent this week, they're actually taking a look at their RPOs and looking to take the pass tags off - at least in certain situations.
The Gamecocks are currently last in the league in run plays so far this season, with 206 of their 421 total plays coming on the ground (about 49%), according to The State. It's not because they aren't trying to run the ball, or that they aren't having success on the ground. Instead it's due to their RPO tags, and getting a pre or post-snap pass read instead of the run look they want.
“We are looking at having more run-to-run and taking some tags off the RPOs. We’re going to still do the RPOs, that’s been very good for us, but sometimes we’re getting too far away from the run game and not sticking with it,” Muschamp shared.
Last week against Texas A&M, Gamecock running backs were ripping off close to 7 yards per carry in the first half but in the second half those same backs only got six carries between all of them. Muschamp explained that they had nearly 10 other times they would have liked to have run the ball called, but an RPO was tagged with it, and the ball ended up in the air instead. They finished the game with 14 carries total for the running backs, and another four from the quarterback.
Muschamp noted on the call that they need more than 14 carries from their running backs, and that working through those RPO issues is something that they'll continue to work through as a staff.
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