CALAIS – It’s an offense that combines power and misdirection, and the Calais-Woodland Silverados hope it leads to respectability during their inaugural season as a varsity football program this fall.

The double wing offense has been a productive tool of the game for coach Ian Pratt’s club during several seasons of competition in the Canadian-based Fundy Football League – leading to a Maritime provincial bantam championship in 2006 – and one season of subvarsity play on this side of the border last fall.

Several teams around the state in recent years have used the offense, which tightly bunches the linemen along the line of scrimmage with the quarterback and running backs aligned just behind the line, making it more difficult to determine who winds up with the ball on a given play.

But while the likes of Gorham, Skowhegan, Messalonskee of Oakland and Boothbay have had varying degrees of success with the offense, the double wing hasn’t been featured in the LTC Class C ranks during recent years. Calais-Woodland believes that can work to its advantage.

“What I like about the double wing is it kind of gives us an advantage because other teams aren’t running it,” said Pratt. “It allows us to have good angles for blocks and a lot of misdirection. It’s really complicated to teach and really hard to learn, but our kids will do anything for us, they work their tails off every day and listen intently.

“We’ve had great success running it in the past, and I’ll be looking forward to see how it does at the varsity level.”

Senior Eric Henry, a wingback last year, will step in at quarterback for the Silverados, with other top offensive threats to include senior fullback Blake Ford and senior wingback Cal Shorey.

Calais-Woodland will complement that offense with a 3-4 base defense featuring Ford and Eddie Flaherty at linebacker and Shorey at end.

“Our offense pumps up our defense,” said Ford. “When we drive down the field using ball control and running the clock, when we go on defense we’re just so pumped up.”

The arrival at the varsity ranks marks the culmination of a fairly intense recent effort to make the transition from Canadian youth football – which local youngsters can still play in as part of the local feeder system – to having the chance to be the best in Maine.

“We’re going to aim for states, obviously, as every team should,” said Henry, “but being a first-year varsity it’s going to be interesting, and we hope for the best.”

The Silverados, who consist primarily of Calais High School players but also has a handful of Woodland High students, will feature a relatively young roster.

We have a lot of new kids coming out this year, a lot of freshmen, which is real encouraging,” said Shorey. “Hopefully the program will keep going and get stronger.”

Pratt is hopeful any growing pains the team experiences this season will pay dividends in the near future.

“My biggest goal for the team this year is to have a competitive program where the kids have fun and learn a lot about themselves, and to build sustainability for the program,” said Pratt, a former football player under Art Greenlaw at Stearns of Millinocket during the late 1980s.

“If we’re competitive in all our games this year, I’ll think this was a tremendous success in terms of sustainability of the program and for people seeing that it wasn’t a mistake to allow a team from Washington County to play varsity football this year.”

CALAIS-WOODLAND SILVERADOS

2007 results: Played subvarsity schedule

Head coach: Ian Pratt, 1st year at varsity level

Key players: Eric Henry, Sr., QB-DB; Blake Ford, Sr., LB-FB; Eddie Flaherty, Sr., LB-OG; Cal Shorey, Sr., WB-DE; Spencer McCormick, So., WB-DB; Greg Jackson, Sr., RB-DB; Nathan Phelps, Sr., OL-DL

Outlook: Calais-Woodland joins the varsity ranks after an impressive run at the junior varsity level a year ago. Despite graduating just three seniors the team is young, and the competition will be much stiffer. Ford, Flaherty and Shorey give the Silverados three top-of-the-line athletes on which to center their offense and defense, and the double-wing offense the team runs is difficult for opposing teams from a preparatory standpoint. An expanded playoff field of eight teams makes postseason play a possibility for the Silverados, though their season opener against Maine Central Institute and a Week 3 contest against Mount View of Thorndike will be pivotal toward reaching that goal.