Wake Forest: Untangling Secret Sauce

RPO Slow Mesh And How to Apply RPO In Your Life

The entire football world wants to understand the secret sauce of the Wake Forest run-pass option (RPO) delayed mesh. Why? Because the quarterback fakes a hand-off for a second or two longer than virtually all other teams that run the RPO. It’s novel. They’re 7 and 0 and ranked 13th in America.

But you won’t find the secret sauce from coach Dave Clawson. Check out this passage from an article this week on yahoo.com.

Clawson happily spoke of the offense’s origins and evolution. But he wouldn’t dial in on how the quarterback reads the defense, which he sees as a competitive advantage. “That’s the stuff we don’t share,” he said. “There’s a lot of people who run RPOs. How we read stuff is very unique to us.”

The reads can put virtually any defender in conflict to choose run or pass on a given play, and the offense is designed to have built-in answers for whatever choice the defender has. “It changes by the play,” Clawson said of who is in conflict. “Other than the defensive tackles, at some point everyone can be in conflict.”

I have a few theories on what he’s not telling us. Let’s start with him saying “how we read stuff is very unique to us.”

Theory One: Quarterback Sam Hartman has perfected this unique offense. He’s so good he’s now a Heisman Trophy candidate. He “reads” the movements of the defensive players as he holds the ball in his running back’s belly deciding whether to hand it off or pass.

Here’s where it gets difficult to copy – a key pillar of an effective strategy. He checks to see if the middle linebacker steps forward or backward. Or left to right. At the same time, he’s watching the same movements of the two other linebackers, two cornerbacks, two safeties, and two outside defensive linemen.

All at once, he can process the movements of nine different guys and make snap decisions based on which way each of them moves. Sounds difficult, almost impossible. But that’s what the does. He’s a blend of Jerry Lucas, who could memorize dictionaries, and Rainman, who could do complex math equations in seconds without a calculator or abacus.

Theory Two: Hartman studies which players appear to be in conflict as he holds the ball in his running back’s belly. If the cornerback is yelling at the linebacker, that’s conflict. If the safety is yelling at the defensive end, that’s conflict. If the coach is yelling at any of his defensive players, that’s conflict.

Processing all these conflicts, Hartman figures out which conflict is the most intense based on his visceral instincts and Rainman intuition. He either hands the ball off in that direction or hits a receiver in that point of high conflict. Or he just randomly runs the play at the people in conflict because they’re bound to screw up the play defensively. You can’t play football well when conflicted.

“The key is figuring out in a split second who’s the angriest at whom on the defense because they’re likely to still be arguing while we run our play and I run the play at them,” said Hartman.

Theory Three: Clawson says the Wake Forest offense has built-in answers for whatever choice the defense has. So if the right outside linebacker can rush to the outside or inside and decides inside, Hartman runs the play the other way. When that rusher slashes towards the runner, Hartman steps in his way, turns his back, and throws a “butt block.”

He obstructs the rusher from making the play. The butt block is the secret sauce, not to mention in poor taste. Never before in football history has a quarterback been taught to block guys with his butt. This is a real thing. Look it up.

Theory Four: Wake Forest doesn’t have any secret sauce in how it reads defenses in the middle of plays. Clawson just said that to play mind games with defensive coordinators. He wants them to overthink and overprepare for something that isn’t really happening. Spending time on that, they’re not focused on preparing for what Wake Forest is really doing, which is just faking a run often and then passing. Clever coaching. Love the gamesmanship.

This whole run-pass option fascination got me thinking. What if we applied run-pass option concepts to our daily lives? For instance, what if, at a football tailgate, you carried your paper plate around the parking lot reading the different meats being cooked. Studied the different types of donuts, muffins, and bagels.

Then, after reading the situation, decided instead of a plate of bratwurst and chocolate donuts, the equivalent of a handoff to the running back, you kept your plate (the ball) and decided based on the locations and shorter lines at the hot dog grill and bagel table to go with that instead because the lines were shorter? Delayed RPO slow mesh grub style.

Or how about when you’re in the shower in the morning? You start thinking you’re going to wash under your arms first (a running play) but then feel your Johnson itching so hold onto the soap (the ball) and wash down under first. Or you think you’re going to shampoo first but find out there’s none left so you fake like you’re going to shampoo by picking up the bottle but put it down and grab the conditioner and pour that on your balding noggin instead?

Or how about this – you’re going to write a blog about Halloween. But your data analytics say none of your readers care about Halloween. So you go with a blog about the run-pass option. But you find out no one cares about that either so you don’t hand the blog off yet and instead go to the open daylight of a guy standing nude, taking his time, taking a shower washing off down under.

Your shower play is a slow RPO mesh.