This isn’t Rugby
& I don’t want it to be
The Accident That Changed Everything
Utah, 2003. Practice was supposed to be routine—just another day drilling spread offense concepts under Urban Meyer. But sometimes the most important innovations come from beautiful mistakes.
The wide receiver on the play was supposed to block his defender on a designed running play. Instead, he mistakenly ran a bubble screen route. The defender, no longer blocked, collapsed on quarterback Alex Smith.
But Smith, "being the very intelligent player that he is," didn’t panic. He "flips it out there and he (the wide receiver) takes off running."
“I’m standing in the back saying, ‘What was that play?’” Meyer recalled years later.
“Kyle Whittingham, my D-coordinator, is running at me with a script and said, ‘I’ve never seen that play before, what is that?’”
What they had witnessed was the accidental birth of the run-pass option—a single play that would eventually transform offensive football at every level.
The coaching staff "quickly tweaked it into the playbook," and what began as a missed assignment became a foundational element of modern offense.
The Real Question
When you see this type of play, what sport are you watching?
Third-and-17. Josh Allen scrambles upfield past the LOS, sees Ty Johnson running up the left sideline, and throws a tight spiral for a huge gain.
Or Bo Nix improvising a tight spiral/pitch yards after he’s already past the line of scrimmage.
If your answer is “rugby,” you're missing the point entirely.
If your answer is “football with higher IQ,” then you understand exactly what this is about.
The RPO Precedent
Utah's accidental discovery proved football could absorb designed decision trees without losing its identity. RPOs added one post-snap option, quarterbacks could hand off, keep, or throw based on defensive alignment. The innovation didn't weaken football or transform quarterbacks into point guards. It simply gave signal-callers another decision node, created constraint for linebackers, and exploited defensive overcommitment. Every NFL team now runs RPO concepts because they enhance American football rather than dilute it.
The Lateral Extension
Lateral concepts follow the same logic as that Utah breakthrough. The current decision tree offers three branches: hand off, keep, or throw forward. The expanded version adds a fourth: lateral to trailing option. Same sport, same rules, same fundamental character. One additional branch creates better constraint theory without changing football's essential DNA.
Football Purist Credentials
Let me establish something upfront: I despise what targeting has done to this sport. The rule has stripped away football's controlled violence while creating subjective enforcement that decides games. It needs elimination or complete revision. I believe in traditional football values, toughness, preparation, execution under pressure, physical dominance, strategic chess matches between coordinators. Football should remain uniquely American: the down system, line of scrimmage, controlled violence, forward pass as primary weapon.
Being a purist doesn't require being static. Urban Meyer remained a purist when he accidentally discovered RPOs. He didn't abandon football, he made it smarter.
The Desperation Paradox
The "rugby" objection is juste flawed thinking. Teams already attempt lower-percentage plays on third-and-long than well-designed laterals. Flea flickers succeed 3% of the time. Halfback passes on third-and-15 rarely work. Hail Marys complete 8% of attempts. Quarterbacks scramble thirty yards backward. Comeback routes stop short of first down markers.
If coaches accept flea flickers on third-and-12, why reject designed lateral trees with superior mathematics?
Service Academy Evidence
Army, Navy, and Air Force execute hundreds of lateral plays per season through option pitches—technically backward passes. These programs represent the most fundamentally sound football in America, not rugby mutations.
The 2024 fumble statistics tell the story: Army lost 5 fumbles, Navy 8, while Alabama fumbled 10 times and Georgia 7. Teams that lateral constantly fumble less than programs that fear laterals.
Option football isn't rugby. Systematic lateral concepts aren't rugby either.
The Real Issue
Football has become so specialized in forward movement that spatial intelligence sounds foreign. Yet lateral plays have been legal since 1876. Rugby didn't invent the lateral, American football simply stopped using it systematically. We've trained ourselves to ignore massive portions of available field space.
The objection fights a strawman. This isn't about turning football into rugby any more than Urban Meyer tried creating basketball with RPOs, Bill Walsh attempted volleyball with West Coast concepts, or Chip Kelly pursued track and field with tempo offense.
This is about helping football become more intelligent football.