- Aug 28, 2014
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williston_gator;n298192 said:@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.â€
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.â€
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.â€
full
https://www.wsj.com/articles/floridas...ace-1444669153
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I really like this.