Urban Meyer: Florida’s "Evil Genuis" Rooted In Princeton’s Single Wing
February 25, 2010
Don’t hate Urban Meyer. It’s really not all his fault.
He never wanted to be a saint.
Pulling a dusty old book from my shelf, I noticed a hand-written note inside from its author.
“To Johnny,
May you, as a former ‘Tiger,’ continue to enjoy those pleasant Saturday afternoons at Palmer Stadium.
Warm regards,
Charlie Caldwell”
Dated November 26, 1951, the note was penned by the former Princeton Head Football Coach and member of the College Football Hall of Fame, Charles Caldwell.
I bought my copy some years ago at a used book store.
It’s called, Modern Single Wing Football.
Published by Lippencott, I was recently able to dig up a review of it from Time Magazine.
Writing about it back then, the magazine noted that Caldwell became a proponent of the single wing offensive attack during his playing days at Princeton.
Against Notre Dame in 1924, he became frustrated with his Tigers’ inability to counter the power attack of Knute Rocknes’ vaunted Irish squads of the day.
Sensing that there had to be a better way, he went back to the old drawing board and refined the single wing system to meet the needs of the “modern game.”
And during the 1950’s, after he had become the coach at his alma mater, Caldwell’s teams met with great success employing his improved single wing offense.
Without going into the minutiae associated with the system, the single wing relies on multiple backs and unbalanced lines and emphasizes blocking schemes, double-team blocking match ups and advantageous blocking angles, misdirection, tossed back snaps from center back to the halfback (shotgun?), fullback, and or quarterback, and deception to achieve its success.
While the pure single wing is not commonly used in the upper levels of college football today, many of its distinguishing characteristics are still prevalent.
Some of these include the use of pulling guards, sweeps and reverses, play action passing, and the shuffle passes often associated with the so-called spread offenses that are currently in vogue.
So when non-Gator fans and spread offense haters are calling Florida’s offensive style and their head coach into question for not preparing players for the “next level,” keep in mind that the roots of coaching evil genius spring from the perhaps not-so hallowed halls of an Ivy League school with helmets that would fit in nicely in Michigan’s Big House.
And they work just fine down here too.
Read more College Football news on BleacherReport.com
Comments
Got something to say?
You must be logged in to post a comment.