WATCH — Tale of two fakes: Florida Gators fail (miserably), succeed (amazingly) on trick plays

By Adam Silverstein
January 1, 2016

The first quarter of the 2016 Citrus Bowl featured two trick plays called by Florida Gators coach Jim McElwain. Simply put, the first one failed miserably while the second was arguably the most effective that has been run in college football this season.


Early in the first quarter with Florida stalled in the red zone, McElwain brought the field goal unit on the field and had redshirt senior walk-on Neil MacInnes in as the kicker. Instead of going for three, MacInnes attempted a fake field goal inside toss, which actually got intercepted by the Michigan Wolverines.

Faced with yet another scoring opportunity near the end of the quarter, the Gators had 1st and Goal from the 1-yard line but were unable to get the ball in the end zone. On third down, McElwain called for some more trickeration that resulted in so much open space that two different players could have scored.

Sophomore quarterback Treon Harris faked like he was calling an audible, only for junior running back Kelvin Taylor to take the direct snap; Taylor then flipped the ball to freshman wide receiver Antonio Callaway on a reverse, and though Callaway could have trotted into the end zone, he flipped the ball – underhanded – to Harris, who was waiting beyond the line to bring it down.

Florida and Michigan were tied 7-7 at the end of the first quarter with Callaway already having 53 yards on two receptions, plus the touchdown toss – the first for a Gators wideout since Andre Caldwell in 2006.

One Comment

Leave a Reply to Sharon Milner Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Top
WordPress Appliance - Powered by TurnKey Linux