The 2018 offense won’t be a “pure” RNS. But not even Jones ran a “pure” RNS. You would have to go back to the Mouse Davis versions in the 80’s and 90’s to be considered “pure”. To understand what the 2018 offense might be requires a basic understanding of the evolution of the RNS offenseJ-Rod wrote: From your perspective, does Rolo's 2018 run-and-shoot look like the offense we knew and loved? Is it heavily modified with RPO stuff? I'm all for variety, especially with the offenses well known issues in the red zone, but hopefully this version of the R&S stays true to the system.
Any discussion of the RNS starts with Davis’ core plays of Go, Choice, Streak and Switch with Switch being a version of Streak. These plays had route adjustments built into them. Davis also had other complimentary passing plays which generally didn’t have route adjustments.
Jones’ version from 1999 to 2007 adopted much of the Davis version with many additional plays. Some of those other plays were West Coast offense in nature not necessarily in terms of formation but with the philosophy of a short passing game in place of a running game. Jones also eliminated route adjustments on some plays, basically making an educated guess on what the defensive coverage was going to be and telling the receivers what route to run.
The Lee version in 2008-09 was a little more similar to the Davis version putting back in more route adjustments.
The Rolovich version in 2010-11 is similar to the Jones version but added some read option and RPO plays. The read option was a change up off the basic zone read game. The RPO plays weren’t generally known as RPO then, but were in fact plays that the QB had an option of handing off or passing. That version of the RPO were more were of a West Offense philosophy (i.e. move the chains) rather than potential big play in nature. Rolovich put back in some of the route adjustments.
The “hybrid” offense in 2016-17 had an RPO component but contrary to popular opinion was not used that often, maybe 3 or 4 times a game. The RPO plays were different from the 2010-11 “move the change” plays because they had big play potential. They were a change of pace off a base run play and were called when defenses started cheating up in the box and/or played man. Many of the big pass plays in 2017 were RPO plays such as Ursua’s 85 yard TD against Massachusetts and several of Collie’s TD passes on fades. The “hybrid” offense also had a 4 wide package of plays all which have RNS roots, but they didn't have all the route adjustments.
I think the 2018 offense will be similar to the Rolovich 2010-11 RNS offense. Some of the plays will look like the 2016-17 plays but have will many more route adjustments. There will be an RPO package but it will be used as a change up off the base running plays and they won’t be called often. But when an RPO is called, it can be a big play if executed right.
