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Coach Joe Salas is a 30-year coaching veteran. He is a Hal Mumme disciple who coached under the Godfather at Valdosta State alongside Mike Leach and Dana Holgorsen. During Coach Salas' career, he has specialized in turnaround situations. Four times he has taken a losing program and turned them into strong playoff teams. 

His teams have led their league in passing almost every year. He has smashed school, league, and state records at every stop. He has been COY multiple times, won conference and regional championships, and played for the State Championship. Coach Salas is currently the Head Football Coach and Assistant AD at Hobbton High School in North Carolina.

He is presenting the Choice Route Deep Dive tonight. 

He has supercharged his offense with the best passing play the last 3 years. In this online clinic, he will explore choice routes in depth, discussing theory, rules, formations, and stats and going through every cut-up from the 2023 season. Choice Route has been a game-changer for his offense. It is also one of the simplest pass concepts he has. In 2023 they were 46-81-1247-18 TD's - 27 explosive plays. The clinic will be recorded and each attendee will receive a copy. 

Coach Salas notes, “Deep choice route has been our best pass concept the past 3 years. It is great from 2x2, 3x1, 2x1. It is a high percentage way to attack vertically. We completed 57% on it this past season. It has been a game changer for us.” 

A Primer for Tonight’s Masterclass on Choice

Choice is a great concept to stretch the defense. Coach Elliot Wratten and Jason Phillips utilized Choice to protect their RPO while they worked together at Alcorn State. While Coach Salas will dig into they way he utiliizes it, we wanted to give you a primer with a similar application from Coach Wratten and Coach Phillips.

Protect your RPOs with the Choice

Good offensive systems have a progression in what will take it to a certain set of answers. When the defense takes something away the offense should have the answer in its menu of plays. For example, the RPO game was created to protect the run game. RPO allowed offenses to have the answer/progression within the play, but what protects the RPO?

RPO can be designed to attack level 3, and certainly that is an answer, but other components of an offensive attack can serve to take advantage of the defense that is aggressively rotating or playing tighter on level 2 while still remaining gap sound in the box to take away the RPO.  

A well thought out vertical attack helps solve the problem. Certainly, four verticals can enter the discussion, but to do it right, that concept can be expensive in terms of time on task in individual and reps in group and team. It is also a full field concept with several decisions and variables for the quarterback. If that’s not your forte, better answers exist for what you can do to create the vertical answers needed to protect RPO.

Elliott Wratten and Jason Phillips utilized the “Deep Choice” package to protect their RPO game. Their system for RPO is comprehensive and well thought out. It can be accessed here. The Deep Choice is something they utilized Baylor and Central Florida as resources to create a package that works for them.

The carryover for the reads for the RPO game and the versatility of Deep Choice is explained here:

Coach Phillips explains how their attack starts by breaking the field into lanes and designating the lane in which the choice will be run. The idea then is for the receiver in the other lane to be sure he keeps traffic out of the lane designated for the Choice. The general premise is to create a one on one in that designated lane. Phillips gives an overview in the video here.

The Outside Deep Choice has application in a number of formations and situations. Here Alcorn gets the sniffer wide open in the red zone on this Choice Switch:

The Inside Choice puts the option in Lane 2. The quarterback will be looking at the boundary safety to the release of #2. Now the focus is attacking the middle of the field. Coach Philips how this route is run in this video:

Choice Route Masterclass

With the prevalence of spread formations and the emphasis on getting quick players in space, choice concepts are an excellent way of creating mismatches and maximizing those mismatches. It takes time and practice to perfect but it’s an excellent tool for any offense, and a lot of the best offenses in the NFL heavily use choice concepts on third and fourth downs.

Tonight you can tune into the Masterclass on Choice from Coach Salas here:

https://choiceroute.coachesclinic.com/

Always be growing!

Coach Grabowski