I think people seriously undervalue Mac's innovations to the collegiate passing game. He was the guy who came up with the idea of running a six-yard half-speed out pattern near the sideline on third and fifteen. It takes a fella with a certain kind of je ne sais quoi to run a play that hasn't worked the last 14 times you ran it.
Here he is in his final interview with the Gainesville Sun talking about how he came up with all those innovative plays as a young and ambitious teenager:
JM: I was sixteen or 17 years old at the time. Growing up in Missoula, Montana there wasn't much to do, but my best friend Bobby Joe Tucker and I would often drive out to a sheep pasture at night, stand there looking up at the stars from behind our favorites, and just dream about our future. One night - I'll never forget it - it just came to me. I said "Bobby Joe, I just know I want to be a college football coach one day." Bobby turned to me excited as all get out and said. Hurry and finish up with that EWE, Jim! When you get done we'll draw up some plays!" And that's just what we did, we just started drawing up plays in the dirt, one after the next. We did that same routine night after night. We must've drawn up hundreds of plays in that pasture, surrounded by all these beautiful, soft, fluffy, bleating Suffolks. Some of the more creative plays you've seen out of this Gator football team were invented in that very sheep pasture. Like the six-yard soft curl pattern that we tend to run a lot on third and twelve.