RPO Helps Make The Offensive Engine Go For Indiana Football

Mastery of RPO is the secret sauce in the Hoosiers’ success moving the ball. It's complementary football at its best.

Indiana's Justice Ellison (6) scores a touchdown during the Indiana versus Nebraska football game at Memorial Stadium on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. / Rich Janzaruk/Herald-Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Indiana does a lot of things well offensively, but if you had to peel back the onion to determine why it works so well, the Hoosiers’ run-pass option game is a great place to start.

RPO, as it's commonly come to be known, is a staple of modern offensive football. Few teams do it as well as Indiana does.

Quarterback Kurtis Rourke’s mastery of RPO is sublime. The veteran signal-caller is adept at hiding his intention until the last second. He also disguises his throws very well. One example came Saturday against Nebraska on a 7-yard touchdown catch by Myles Price.

Directly after Omar Cooper Jr. made a 36-yard catch to put Indiana in the red zone, Rourke rolled slightly to his right and could have run it. But the better option was Price, who was open with a blocker on the sideline. Rourke tossed it to him, and Price used the block to get to paydirt.

This was not the first and likely not the last productive play of this sort. Indiana opponents are noticing this on film and starting to try to counteract the RPO.

That’s just fine with the Hoosiers, because all that does is open up gaps for Indiana’s committee of running backs to eat up yardage.

Indiana rushed for 215 yards against a Nebraska defense that had only conceded an average of 84.2 yards in its previous six contests.

The threat of the RPO makes it work like clockwork. Complementary football at its zenith.

“When a team decides to load the box up, we throw RPOs behind that. If they try to stop the RPO, we get big runs like today,” Indiana wide receiver Miles Cross explained after the Hoosiers’ 56-7 win Saturday. “We had a lot of big runs that popped today. It plays off each other. I feel like the RPOs and hand the ball off, it complements each other really well. It keeps the defense off-balance.”

The running backs deeply appreciate the room they have to roam with the threat of RPO. The offensive line does its job too, opening up the holes, but there’s a lot of space behind those holes once the backs break through.

Justice Ellison’s 31-yard touchdown run with 1:09 left in the first half is a perfect example. He took the handoff to Rourke’s right and ran parallel to the offensive line to his left. Left guard Drew Evans and center Mike Katic opened a large hole. Ellison did a great job to see it as he made an abrupt cut.

Once he got through the gap, there was only one Cornhusker defender to beat. Ellison got him turned around and strolled to the end zone. Nebraska’s other defenders were beaten at the line or committed elsewhere.

“The box count was probably in our favor, which tells me they were probably overplaying the RPOs. We were handing the ball off and gaining yards,” Indiana coach Curt Cignetti said.

Ellison wasn’t sure what approach Nebraska’s defense would take to combat Indiana’s offense, but he was pleased the complementary attack Indiana does so well worked as intended.

“We knew that whether they were pulling the ball and I had to sell my fakes so that we can draw those safeties down to us and we can get those back-end throws, or vice versa, if they were going to play two high safeties and be able to force us to beat them running the ball. We executed where we needed,” said Ellison, who rushed for 105 yards and 2 touchdowns.

Fellow back Ty Son Lawton, who rushed for 64 yards and a 1-yard touchdown run, was more sure of what the Cornhuskers would throw at the Hoosiers. His faith that the RPO would break it was rewarded.

“We knew that Nebraska put their free safety and their strong safety in the box a lot. We knew that RPO was going to help keep them back (in coverage). You see it kind of did, because me and Justice had some good runs. I feel like those help extremely with our offense,” Lawton said.

Indiana’s RPO mastery has taken the Hoosiers to a 7-0 record. No defense has been able to stop Indiana’s complementary approach yet. 

With the news on Sunday morning that Rourke is out for an indefinite period with his throwing hand injury, Tayven Jackson will be at the controls for the Hoosiers for the next game at least. Jackson played well on Saturday in Rourke’s absence, but among the things he’ll have to do is to keep Indiana’s RPO game crisp.

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• KURTIS ROURKE INJURY UPDATE: After suffering a thumb injury in the first half of Saturday's 56-7 win over Nebraska, Indiana quarterback Kurtis Rourke is not expected to play next week against Washington. CLICK HERE

• INDIANA MANHANDLES NEBRASKA: Nebraska entered Saturday’s game at Indiana with one of the nation’s top defenses, but the Hoosiers – in both the run and pass game – exploited every aspect of the Cornhuskers’ defense in a 56-7 win. CLICK HERE

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• WHAT CIGNETTI SAID: Everything Indiana coach Curt Cignetti said after Indiana's 56-7 win over Nebraska on Saturday. CLICK HERE.

• LIVE BLOG: Read about Indiana's 56-7 victory over Nebraska as it happened. CLICK HERE.