Florida’s Offense: It Came From Outer Space

[Gatorious]

@GatorsScott: #Gators HC Jim McElwain will use star formations as plays. Story via @WSJSports -- https://www.wsj.com/articles/floridas...ace-1444669153 https://twitter.com/GatorsScott/statu...339840/photo/1

A link to this article was posted by Williston Gator in the game thread. I thought it deserved its own thread, so....

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Florida’s Offense: It Came From Outer Space

How Jim McElwain, coach of the unbeaten Gators, gets play-calling inspiration from staring at the stars

When Florida football coach Jim McElwain wanted to get away last summer, he headed to a place about as far as he could get from Southeastern Conference country: Montana.
During the days, McElwain would unwind by lounging on his dock and puttering around the water. But at night, he would get to work. That’s when McElwain would light a fire, kick back on the banks of Flathead Lake and stare at the big sky until the early hours of the morning.
He wasn’t simply stargazing. McElwain was using the cosmos to diagram the wildest offensive plays imaginable.
“The stars are so clear, you count out 11 of them, and pretty soon you’ve got some real interesting formations,” McElwain said. “If I can figure out how to make them legal, absolutely I’ll use them.”
College football coaches will look almost anywhere for inspiration. But there is no one who gets his ideas the way McElwain does. He may be the first coach to lift his most creative schemes directly from outer space. “Believe me,” he said, “some of them are pretty out there.”

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McElwain readily admits that plotting plays from the stars sounds really, really weird. When he draws up them up back in the office, he said, McElwain gets bewildered looks even from members of his own staff. The most exotic of these plays won’t make it into an actual game plan, either. “Some formations we call ‘Alien’,” he said, “simply because we haven’t really seen them on this planet.”

full
https://www.wsj.com/articles/floridas...ace-1444669153



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I really like this.

 

[Doopree]

I'm curious to the amount of LSD and weed coach engaged in during his college years.

 

[Gatorious]

Montana...cows...shrooms?


In seriousness though, I see it as that he has found a fertile medium for thinking. A device for revelation of the imagination.
Nostradamus is said to have stared into a burning cauldron. Looking at clouds, ink blots and interpreting.

Its a source or tool of divination, prima materia - and the minds' filter processes what is cognitized, and tries to use or apply that information in a practical way.

 

[Swamp Donkey]

What is it with Montana guys and nature walks?

Ox must have gotten a heads up on the Gator's Ziggy Stardust theme for the podcast this week.

 

[maheo30]

We are going to need that creativity with Treon at QB.

 

[CaribGator]

See guys, this is why Ox used that cosmic background on the last video cast, cut him some slack, he's all aboard the Mac Spaceship, blasting off to a 6-0 record, leaving the ruins of chumpdom behind.
Lifting this team back to glorious heights were we belong

We are stardust, we are golden...

 

[Captain Sasquatch]

It's funny that our offense, at least statistically, isn't really that great. But they've moved the ball and scored points in key moments, and done enough to keep the defense fresh. Which, after the last five years, has been all we really needed out of the unit. It's going to be a hell of a lot of fun to watch this offense once Mac really makes his imprint on the recruiting trail and gets his guys in there. If he can make this lovable band of losers move the ball and score on a marginal basis, what's he going to do when he's got all the pieces he needs? In the words of Bart Scott.........

[video=youtube;tKnG06-oYcg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKnG06-oYcg[/video]

 

[Swamp Donkey]

It's funny that our offense, at least statistically, isn't really that great.

Since 2009, we've had one offense in the top 100 and it was 89th. No wonder we are giddy.

 

[Gatorious]

 

[ReelGatorDoc]

I think Coach Mac is really refreshing! His attitude and subtle humor is just what we need. The man seems to understand organization, player development, how to move the chains and then how to appreciate the moment. Refreshing. Win or lose, the next game is the the biggest game.

This organization will not be judged on how it handles success, but how it handles "set backs". Got to keep on chugging

 

[GatorStud]

Here's to Treon acting like a shooting star during a super nova team effort tonight....