The Arkansas State football team has become an online sensation after using a funny "Fainting Goat" technique on a fake punt play over the weekend.
Red Wolves coach Blake Anderson explained Tuesday — after the YouTube video had more than a million hits — that Booker Mays was an ineligible receiver and couldn't go downfield, so they decided to have a little fun with him.
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"Booker's got a great personality, so we just told him once they snap, since you can’t go downfield, just take a step back and do the Fainting Goat technique," Anderson
told USA Today.
"We showed him the video and he worked at it all week and had a great time with it and got better every day. And then on Saturday, we ran it. The only problem was we did a poor job on the fake itself. We had a guy open and uncovered and we just underthrew the pass and got picked off. But Booker did his part to a T."
Anderson said he got the idea from a prank he pulled on quarterback Bryn Renner while working at North Carolina. One day during practice, he had the entire team do the Fainting Goat immediately following the snap.
"When you scare a goat, it faints," he said. "It was a joke."
Even though Booker pulled off the goat perfectly, rival Miami didn't notice, and went on to beat the Red Wolves 41-20.
"So I’d love it if it had actually worked. It would have been a better story if we had got a first down," said Anderson.
"It really wasn’t going to be a critical part of the play, successful or not. It was just a distraction and mainly to have a good time with the kids. They’ve been through five head coaches in five years. Any chance we can laugh with them and have a good time with them I think will help us grow as a team."
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