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Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Who DID Invent the Wildcat/Wild Rebel/Wild Dolphin? Col Mustard in the Pantry...


Hopefully, most of you football fans saw the highlights of the Dolphins' win against New England over the weekend, in which Miami RB Ronnie Brown ran the "Wild Dolphin" formation for 3 TDs. There's been a series of articles in the Orlando paper this week about the origins of the formation, and since former Arkansas OC David Lee is now on the Miami coaching staff, an article was published Monday crediting Lee with coming up with the formation.

The paper has now published a followup article (after apparently being on the receiving end of an email blitz by Arkansas fans) in which Gus Mal-a-zahn is credited with it (and interviewed about his role in using it at Arkansas). Makes for a good read, regardless of your feelings about the Malzahn/Mustain/Nutt love triangle.

Tracking the origins of something like this is a bit like trying to figure out who first came up with the idea for beer in a can...its impossible to nail down one "creator." I just think its cool that something that really took off on the college level at Arkansas is now in the NFL. I also like the fact that its pretty much connected with Arkansas and McFadden every time its run on the college or pro level now.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I don't care who invented it or who didn't, but I do remember a lot of people crying when we started running it, saying "Houston has taken over the offense from Gus!" When it started working and now that people are copying it, those same folks are saying it was Gus all along.

So, did Gus invent the Wildcat, the forward pass, the game of football, the light bulb?