Episode 72 - Ricky Rahne

You know, it, it kind of ends as like a, another spring practice. So it allows us to get a little bit better. And so that would be a huge. All right, coach. Obviously, we don't want to give any trade secrets away, but we're all about educating our fans to help educate our fans on what they see our offense do. Could you walk us through the mind of the quarterback when a running player in RPOs called in from the sideline up to the point where the ball snap?

Yeah, well, first he gets the play and, uh, You know, some of the plays have an RPO built into them, some of them, there's an RPO tag onto it, so it just kind of depends. At that point, he's got to understand, alright, who are the... Who, you know, there's only five offensive linemen, right? So who are the five offensive linemen blocking? Um, if the tight end is involved, who's the tight end blocking?

So who, you know, either the five for five or six, and then the quarterback knows, you know, I have the extra guy. And where is that extra guy coming from? Um, and then how do I deal with that extra guy based on what the RPO is? So, you know, sometimes it's a downfield throw with a safety hitting it. Sometimes it's, you know, reading a defensive end and then reading the support player, almost like old school triple option.

Um, sometimes it's reading a linebacker for either a handoff, a give or some sort of throw, but It's just the quarterback giving the quarterback the power to understand how to deal with them. And then a lot of times there's multiple ways you can deal with them depending on where they're sitting. If they're closer to line of scrimmage, farther away from the line of scrimmage. Um, there's just a bunch of different things that you can do. And so really, really get good at this offense.

You have the ability to kind of. Solve your own issues and you know, there's times you can turn things into a pure pass play. There's times you can, you know, read a guy like for a run play, you know, another run. So there's a bunch of different things that you can do. And I think that the more you get experienced with it, the more you'll feel empowered and actually you get more freedom. You know, it gives a coach Decker the ability to kind of tag everything, you know, and that sort of thing.

And I think that's where, you know, as a quarterback, you start to feel, you know. He starts to feel pretty darn good at that point. Yeah, that's got to feel great. Uh, you know, as a quarterback, that's a lot of responsibility. It's a lot of things to see what's going on outside of the reads that the quarterback has and the play that calls in. Does he have any leeway to, you know, adjust that play?

Or does that kind of just depend on where you are in the offense and how much experience the quarterback has? Yeah, I mean, sometimes he does. You know, sometimes you want to run a certain, a play a certain way, meaning like to a certain technique on the front. You know, either the, what we call the one technique that the nose guard, sometimes you want to run it to the three technique. Um, sometimes you may want to run it to a certain linebacker.

You're not sure where he's going to be lined up or something to that effect. So there are times when he's going to make those changes. And then there's other times. And like I said, he has the ability to kind of change maybe a RPO into just a true drop back pass play based on, uh, the type of. Uh, that is being shown

Offenses that, or teams that run this offense, they tend to be much better their second year running this offense because they have a better feel for that part of the offense on the op, the option or choice routes or however you wanna say that they are, you know, we did a little bit of that type of stuff in our last offense. Um, so it wasn't devoid of that. It's, there were certainly some shorter ones. You know, Zach Cos, Ali Jennings had.

Catches on choice and option routes, and then all we had a bunch of catches on some deeper option routes that we ran as well. Some of our most explosive plays were some deeper option routes, so they probably didn't look that way to the, to probably even the defense, to be really honest with you, the way he ran them, so it. It's not like we haven't done this. And most teams have those type of things in their offense. We just do it probably a little bit more.

So it does require some, some time and some conviction and running things with belief. And it also it's trust between, you know, the quarterback and the receiver. And really, it's also time on job. I mean, you just have to do it more and more. And then you feel really comfortable with it. And then you don't feel like there's a coverage that they can stop you in

They will Kind of bluff a look to you or change it right, the point of the snap, kind of trying to intentionally force a read a certain one, a certain way, one way or another, depending on what the call is, you know, how does that kind of disrupt what we're trying to do offensively? Or we kind of have built ins there to where, all right, yes, they bluff their blitz and they backed out into a zone. We can go attack it anyway.

You still have to get some sort of post snap confirmation on the thing, you know, because if not, you're going to be, you know, throwing a ball into the flat against cover to which every quarterback in the history of football has done and feel like an idiot right after you've done it. So, yeah, you still have to, we still have answers for those sort of things. All right,

Now there's always adjustments, but the original formation is always one word, you know what I mean? And really it's usually one syllable, you know, uh, so that's how a lot of things are done. And, but, you know, just so you can get it out easier. Cause you know, you're going to have some sort of kind of. For lack of a better term, you're going to have some sort of adjustment to all those formations. You know what I'm trying to say?

So, you know, we, uh, we like to keep them to one word, no doubt about it.

You have two linemen, defenders here and the other defenders here. To zone right to get back to that guy can be really difficult, right? Because you just don't, you don't have an angle. So on that point, you may want to zone all the way through and push everything through so that you can have angles on people because the reality of it is you want to be on the down lineman for as long as possible. Right.

And so the longer you can be on the down lineman, the longer you can, the more you can get movement and those sorts of things. But if you're on the down lineman and your angle isn't bad, what happens or the angle isn't good, you end up working against each other. So if I'm blocking here and then this guy's coming this way, but his, his guy's there, we end up working. Against each other on that down line. So you want to get where you guys are working together so you can get movement.

What I think that sometimes fans don't understand is it's always not going to be vertical movement, right? I mean, these guys are getting coached too. I mean, if they were getting blown 3, yards off the ball, I mean, obviously we're going to keep running the ball every down. And then second of all, I mean, we're probably murdering that, right? I mean, like that, that's not a thing in the Sunbelt. I mean, we play good football teams, right? They were well coached.

So you're going to get some vertical movement, but you're also going to get horizontal displacement. Right. You're going to be able to knock a guy out of his gap by knocking him horizontally. So what you're trying to do is just get some sort of movement at all. The defense, on the other hand, is trying to get displacement. They're trying to make sure that they can get the O line off level. Right. And so that's why they're trying to knock back and split things and do those sort of things.

They're trying to get them off level so that they can't be double teamed anymore. And that's why you see guys like running through like Jason. Some of our Wayne will run through sometimes because when they do that now it makes the double team come off. And then all of a sudden it's harder to block our defense blind that way. Right. So it's a lot about. Making sure that you're, you have those sort of angles in order to dictate how those, how the blocks are getting done.

So that's why we do run so many different schemes, whether we're pulling somebody, maybe that's the best way for us to get our angle. Right. Where, you know, we may be pulling for the linebacker, we may be pulling to trap or kick out what defensive lineman and maybe a zone blocking scheme where, hey, we're going to zone, right. But even on zone blocking schemes, you're still zoning to people most of the time. Right. Do you guys understand what I'm saying? So it's not like you're just zoning.

I'm just going to zone indiscriminately over here. You're still zoning to people. Now, there are some outside zone plays where you might zone to an area. And say, all right, we're just going to pick up whoever comes into this thing and that sort of thing. So there's a bunch of different things that you're trying to get done, but all of them are, the base concept is you're just trying to get angles. All right.

That was taught a long time ago that you're trying to get numbers, angles, and graphs, right? So, you know, where do I have the most numbers? Right. Where do I have the best angles? And then where's the, where, where can I have the most space? I mean, is a, uh, you know, I mean, it's essentially trench warfare, right? I mean, you know, it's world war one, everyone's dug in and where can you try to, you know, find that ability to get through You know what I mean?

And that's why there's so much innovation in the game of football. Same reason tanks came around, same reason machine guns came about. Right. I mean, you're trying to find a flamethrower, right? All those sorts of things that were innovative in, in world war one, because you had to find a way to, to get that space well, you know, football, that's why you're innovating all the time too. You know, I was also, you know, sometimes you expand.

To get that space like we do right other times, some people will constrict everything and now you're being able to create space otherwise, right by either creating more gaps or now there's space on the outside because you brought everybody in.

You know, I think coach Harper has done an unbelievable job of getting him ready to go and he is blocking much, much better, you know, and long term that's going to help his future for the NFL to be able to see him block. That's going to, that's going to be a huge thing because they're going to be able to notice that he can run and catch and do something and they don't. Really care about his stats as much as people probably think, right? They want to see him do that other stuff.

So he's doing a nice job. He really is. And his, what he does is he gives us, sometimes the angle is him blocking a defensive lineman. Sometimes the angle is him blocking a, uh, a linebacker. He's been great in pass pro and by bringing him in, it allows us to, they don't know where the extra gap is going to happen. Right. So, you know, we can put that extra gap, might be the C gap, might be the B gap, might be the A gap. Doesn't matter.

The team we're about to play does an unbelievable job of that. They do it differently. They actually line their tight up, tight end in those gaps. They'll separate their offensive line and actually put their tight end as like basically the guard or basically the tackle. Um, so they do it a little bit differently than we do, but they're still trying to do the same thing. They're just creating a different gap. Obviously huge win this past week at Georgia Southern.

No one's gone in there and won this year. That game, no different than any of them this year, really have been close. Your team's been a 9 1 possession game this season, the most in the country, and you've had to make many difficult decisions late in those games. Some have worked

And so like when I've looked back at it, um, some of the things I've done, I'm like, yep, I would do that again, exactly the same way. And it didn't work, you know, and then there's some of them where I'm like, no, that was. Wouldn't do it that way again, and it worked, you know what I mean?

But what I've got to do is I've got to learn it and see why it worked or why it didn't work And then go from there There's also some things that there's some decisions you're gonna make in a game that maybe you didn't make early in the year and it's Not you're not changing why you did it based on because it did or didn't work You're changing it based on what's happening in that game at that moment You know, and you have to be able to adjust on what is happening around you, your opponent, how

you're playing, injuries, all those sort of things. So that's also going to change some of these decisions. You know, it's not always going to be one of those situations where it's going to be, uh, Hey, I made this time, I just, this time, uh, and it didn't work. So now I'm not ever going to do that again. I mean, that's not, I can't be like that. I can't be a prisoner of the moment. Like that. I've got to make better decisions than that.

Now I'm not going to, I'm not one of those people who uses the book and all that sort of stuff, because I think the book, while a useful tool and I understand analytics and I appreciate it. I think the book struggles to take into account that a guy get a twisted ankle, right? Is a guy just not having his best day that day. You know, is a guy hot and he's just moving people left and right on the offensive line. Like is a quarterback doing well? Is your defense playing really well?

Is your defense playing not so well? I mean, like, I think that, you know, that's hard for those books to take into consideration, which is why football hasn't been as analytics based, at least successfully as. Like for example, basketball and baseball, right? I mean, those games, particularly baseball, um, they had to make rules to get rid of some of the analytics because those analytics were so good because it's one picture on one matter, you know?

And so it makes it a little bit harder in football.

Uh, Want to know, do you have a number estimate of how many are going to be walking out on the field before the game Saturday and just talk a little bit about what this fifth and sixth year senior class has meant to you and your time here?

And if not, if it's a guy who transferred in here, it, they trusted us to, to help them along with their career or to give them a great, you know, last experience of their college career or for some of them, even their football career. So yeah, it's an important deal. You know, I think the hardest part for these young men is like, it was a little bit harder for me. And I don't mean that. I mean that for one very simple reason. I knew that was my last football game of my life, right?

So like, and for me, like when it was my, when it was the last game of my last regular season, I knew that was it. Now my senior day was actually the week before because we didn't play my last game at home. We played it on the road. But these guys. Don't necessarily know that, right? Because we can win and play in a bowl game. Some of them can, some of them might still transfer. Some might go play in the NFL. I knew none of those things were up on the horizon for me.

So I do think it's a got a little bit different than maybe it used to be. But for some of our guys who are know that. One of these games, one of these last two games will be their last game of their lives. It means a little bit more, you know what I mean? And the one thing they all know is, yeah, this is their last game in S. P. Ballard Stadium, or as you guys call it, the castle. I think that Mr. Ballard would prefer that I continue to call it S. P. Ballard Stadium, so I will, I will do so.

But, uh, although I do like the castle, it's kind of cool. But, yeah, so those guys, you know, knowing that it's their last time playing there, and as many times as they've put the uniform on, uh, yeah, it means a

What can fans expect this weekend from Georgia State?

Thing they have and we know they're talented. So this is gonna be this can be a football game Okay, coach. So throughout this season, we've seen some new wrinkles get unveiled as the season has kind of progressed uh, obviously We saw some trickeration in the last one that worked out brilliantly I have to ask because it was beautiful to to watch Is there much that we haven't seen yet? Yeah, yeah, there's still some other stuff. Yeah, I mean, we've been working on some things for a while.

Yeah, that's usually what happens on those Deceptives. I like to call them Deceptives, not Tricks, you know. I learned that one from, uh, watching Urban Mire a bunch, you know. It just sounds better, right? Trick sounds like it was luck. Deceptive sounds like you were, like, trying, like, like, yeah, like we knew this was gonna work the whole time, you know what I mean? So, yeah, I, uh, you know, We, they take some time to, to work on and do some of those sorts of things.

So yes, we definitely still have some things out there. And it's got to be the right time. It's got to be the right opportunity. There's been some times where, uh, coach deck has asked me, Hey, should we run it here or should we run this here? And I said, no, there's a couple of times I've said, Hey, what about this? And he's like, I just don't feel good about it right now. So, I mean, they've come up, you know, they've come up and, uh, but that was the perfect time.

He didn't really need to ask me on that one because we've kind of talked about it pregame and I, he called it and I've never been more confident in the play was going to work in my entire life, to be very honest with you, it's just, that was pretty awesome. It worked well and

And was back there when he really shouldn't have been. And I'm not saying that from like, he shouldn't have been there. Like, we don't think we didn't want him there. Like you look at the defense, like he should not have been there. And so it was like, Oh man, but he really, he sold it. He didn't panic. I ran that in a game once and I paid. Like a little chump and then and then the ball got batted away by the free safety. So he did it much better than I did

You're trying to get guys to stay here and develop in those sort of things. And I, and that's where I really appreciate what the, uh, you know, the people have started and supported that collective, that's really what it's about and what it's for.

And if it helps our guys be a little bit more comfortable, it helps them maybe help their families a little bit more, if it helps them eat a little bit better, if it helps them recover a little bit better than, I mean, that's only going to help them be better players and us be a better team. All right,

I mean, to be very honest with you, they did a great job and I'm sure they're very happy with it, but it is a weird environment. It is. Hey,

I mean, I loved every part of that bowl game, um, especially cause we won in overtime. But yeah, so I had done that before. And so that, yeah, so it wasn't my first time doing that. All right, coach, it's Christmas morning. You tear the wrapping paper off a gift with your name on it. Inside is the golden ticket that says good for one college football rule change.

The first one is this, there's called, what's called a long side and a short str, a short side in pre-game warmups, and it lasts until the 45 minute mark, and that's where like the kickers are kicking the ball into the other team. It's bananas. That makes no sense. And all the time, the only almost fights in college football always occur because of the long side and the short side. The coaches almost get into it.

Eventually, there's always going to be some jerk punter or kicker that's going to just kick and like make a scene of it and all that sort of stuff. Eliminate that. 45 yard lines each. The point of no return there in the middle, right? And then you just, you stay on your sides. Kickers, if you want to go out there and kick it long, go out there before the 90 minute mark and wail away, right?

But once the 90 minute mark hits, no. We're doing a 45 yard line so we don't have any issues, that sort of thing. So that's pregame. Actually, that, if I could get that done, I would feel more accomplished about football than anything else I've ever done in my entire life, right? So there's number one. Number two. There should be grades. Targeting, right?

So for example, if the ridiculousness of that Boston college kid, that he, that we all saw that on Twitter, like that was targeting of like the, to the nth degree. Yeah. Toss him out of the game. Right. Get at him. But if something happens, like what happened with Terry, it's like, make, okay, fine for a 15 yard penalty. I'm fine with that, but he shouldn't have to miss the first half.

Of his senior day, if he, and he's actually, he's actually not walking so it's not a senior day, but he shouldn't have to miss of a bunch of his boys and all that sort of stuff going. Right? He shouldn't have to do that. He shouldn't have to miss that game for a play. I don't know how to coach him to tell him not to do that.

The guy, because if the guy doesn't go down for the ball, Is the guy just puts his hands down instead of putting his whole entire body down there, which I'm not telling that young man to do that either. Right. But let's just say he did. Terry would have hit him in the gut with his shoulder pad, by the way, the exact perfect hit that we want everything to happen. So in my mind, there should be just like Like other, there should be flank flagrant ones and flagrant twos, right?

There should be targeting ones and targeting twos. And if you get two targeting twos in a season, then you do miss the next half. You know what I'm saying? But like a targeting one, fine. The way the rule stands down, you know, the target two targeting twos. Anytime in the season, you miss the next half, man. Like you gotta find a way, you know what I mean? But that's how I feel like that should happen.

Now, really, if I was really doing it, I would say a target two targeting twos within a four game span. You know, is how I'd really do it, or even at six games, but those would be the two rules that I would change.

I'm not saying it wasn't i'm saying that particular rule should be modified.

They've been a big story all year We won't ask you to comment on that specific situation unless you just want to Uh, but what are your thoughts on a potential remedy for this being communication devices and helmets like we see in the NFL?

So, so to go to that thing that if they're doing, that's a bad, that's a bad deal. Right. That's a bad deal. All right. Now onto the next thing. I am all for helmet to helmet communication, but I want it in everybody's helmet. Like I think everybody should have it. And if that's the case, because if not, you still have to signal, like you still have to do something, right? Like you, if you, if the quarterback only has it, how do the whiteouts know? Right. You know what I'm trying to say?

So eventually there's still going to be some signals and stuff, because like, I'll just give you, I'll just tell you the truth when we were playing pit back in the day. They were really good at, their signals were hard to pick up. What we've started realizing is, they would call two plays on every one of their signals, and then based on the formation, they would call another thing.

So we start, stopped looking at the coaches and started looking at the players, because the players had to signal to each other what they were doing. So we were started, we started to be able to pick up the signals based on what the players were doing, not what the coaches were doing, right? So then when Pit, guess what, when Pit figured that out, you know what they did? They stole our formation signals.

So then they could just signal in directly to their kids, what they were doing, the way they were doing it. And then they told their kids to not signal to each other at all. Just do what we tell you to do because they had our formations. So it's like. You know, there's, that's some in game stuff. That's really cool. I think, I think that's, I think that's kind of cool.

I mean, no one, like, I, I love how we have movies about like the enigma machine and things like that and code breaking and things like that. And it's really cool. And everyone's all look how cool it is. But now that it's in football, now it's. Now people think it's like cheating and stupid. I don't understand it. Like, whole things are built on this, you know, they're, you know, the Navajo code talkers and all that sort of stuff. That stuff is cool in movies, but now it's not.

I mean, like it's, that's all we're doing, right? But if you have the, it's the problem with the helmet communication is this, in the NFL, they can do that because the NFL runs it. So the son, an NFL worker is turning that thing off at 15 seconds. Right. Or as the ball is snapped, guys, we obviously can't trust each other. We, this, we're all talking about this because of this big scandal that happened. Right. Like, is that what I mean? Like, that's what I don't think.

So it's like, we can't trust a worker who is a, well, since they're the ones involved, how can we trust a Michigan stadium worker to do this and not leave it on for the whole play for the quarterback? And leave it on all 15 seconds for the other team, right? You have to now employ a Sunbelt official to turn that thing on and off. You have to. Like, you don't have an option there. You know what I'm saying?

And so, I think that that's one of the things that, you know, people have got to understand. But if you remember in, what was it, the XFL, I think? Everyone had it. Yes, yep. And it worked pretty darn well. Worked pretty darn well. I mean, I'm not just saying the offensive players. I want the defensive players should have it too, you know, and everyone's like, well, they'll just be getting coached too much and they'll just be like robots will be like a video game. No, it won't.

It's one guy will be able to talk to him. You know what I'm trying to say? And if he's trying to coach everybody at once, let me assure you that he is coaching nobody, right? Like, I mean, that's not a thing. It's not a thing. I mean, that's not really going to happen. So I'm all for it now. What I do want. Yep. And obviously they've done the research, so I think this will be fine. I would want to know that the helmets were still safe for the kids and all that sort of stuff.

Like that it didn't affect the helmet structurally. I assume you're putting a 52 million dollar quarterback's head in there, so I gotta assume that they'll be fine, right? You know what I'm saying? So, and yeah, I think they can.

I mean, it now. You're adding another layer, you're adding another layer, there's no question, there's no question. And so you would have to upgrade a lot of things, which I still think we do need some upgrades. You'd love to see the pylon cam at every stadium, right? I think not only at the, not only at the end zone, but also at the first down marker. I think that's something that would help. And listen, I'm not saying you played anywhere other than instant replay.

The instant replay official is the only one that needs it. It doesn't need to go anywhere else. But I mean, those would be things that would probably need to go down.

What you tell me, what else you can get? What other entertainment can you have for 10 for three hours entertainment? I mean, like it doesn't exist and go show up early tailgate. Everybody's always got extra beer. I assure you, I mean, like that's happening. So there's extra food, actually, everyone's, I mean, I've never heard of anybody at our tailgates getting turned away. You know what I mean?

And so, go show up, go hang out, and, you know, let's just show everybody what 757 football, Hampton Roads football, and ultimately Old Dominion football, what we can be about. Absolutely.