Reunited: McElwain and Nussmeier Seek to Match Past Success -- This Time Together
Sunday, January 11, 2015 | Football, Scott Carter
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- One was a young coach, the other a young player.
They first crossed paths 25 years ago in the Big Sky Conference. Jim McElwain was quarterbacks/receivers coach at Eastern Washington, his alma mater. Doug Nussmeier was the quarterback that every coach under the Big Sky wished he had.
Former Idaho coach John L. Smith was the lucky one and beneficiary of 35 wins over four seasons with Nussmeier directing the Vandals' offense from 1990-93.
"That was a big conference rivalry game for us,'' Nussmeier said. "I won't talk about the records because he might get upset."
For the record, Idaho went 3-1 against Eastern Washington during Nussmeier's record-setting college career, although he missed the game as a freshman due to a broken ankle.
A decade after his college career ended and a few years bouncing around the NFL and CFL, Nussmeier, McElwain and Smith teamed up at Michigan State in 2003 with Smith as the head coach and McElwain and Nussmeier as offensive assistants.
A connection was formed between the former rivals, and three different times over the past decade, Nussmeier (photo, right) has followed in McElwain's footsteps. First, after McElwain left Michigan State for the NFL, Nussmeier left college for the pros. When McElwain returned to college as offensive coordinator at Fresno State in 2007, Nussmeier replaced him a year later.
And finally, when McElwain left Alabama after the 2011 season (and two national titles) to become head coach at Colorado State, Nussmeier replaced him on Nick Saban's staff as offensive coordinator and helped the Crimson Tide repeat as national champions in 2012.
Once more, Nussmeier has followed McElwain. However, this time is different.
They are back together for the first time in nine years, McElwain in charge of a Florida football program yearning to rejoin the nation's elite, and Nussmeier hired to jolt the Gators' offense back to life.
"Nuss and I can sit and talk the same language and it's not going to take a five-hour conversation,” McElwain said. “It's going to take two or three minutes. 'Oh. Yeah. You know what I'm getting at?' And boom.
"He has a great background and is great with people and has developed quarterbacks. I think that's an important thing to understand there, is the development of the position. That's kind of where that is.”
In Nussmeier's first season at Florida, he inherits a roster with three scholarship quarterbacks: starter Treon Harris, freshman Will Grier and reserve Skyler Mornhinweg.
When dissecting what has ailed UF's offense since the departure of quarterback Tim Tebow after the 2009 season, Nussmeier won't need a huge magnifying glass.
The Gators have had six different starting quarterbacks over that time and three ended up transferring.
Nussmeier wants to stabilize and develop the position the way he has in the past, and in the process, recreate some of the success Florida fans are accustomed to from their quarterbacks.
"Talk about a place that has won national championships, conference championships, Heisman Trophy winners,'' Nussmeier said. "To have the opportunity to coach quarterbacks in a school that's had three Heisman Trophy winners at the position, it's a great opportunity for our family.”
On Nussmeier's to-do list as he gets settled at Florida is to sign a quarterback in this class if he can find the right fit. He likes to add a quarterback to the roster with each signing class if possible.
"When you look at creating opportunity, when you look at our depth chart, it's not a deep depth chart at quarterback," he said. "We don't have a lot of numbers there. So the opportunity to come in and compete is the thing that you can sell to anyone."
While many offensive coordinators bring in an offensive line coach they are familiar with, the only member of former coach Will Muschamp's staff retained by McElwain is offensive line coach Mike Summers.
Summers and Nussmeier have never worked together, but Summers said he sees enough common threads in what McElwain and Nussmeier have done in their careers offensively to create something special at UF.
Much like Nussmeier will try to do with the offense's skill players, Summers stabilized and developed a unit that had been inconsistent in recent years into one of the team's strengths in 2014.
"Coach Nussmeier is a guy that I've known for a while from a distance,'' Summers said. "He's got energy, he's got passion, and he's a really knowledgeable football coach. I'm really confident about this whole staff. Really, it's a bunch of guys that have experience, that understand that we are on the front end of something that can be really special."
For Nussmeier, the decision to rejoin McElwain was an easy one after spending last season as offensive coordinator at Michigan.
The two have had success using different offensive systems over the years and neither is ready to label what kind of offense they will roll out in their first season at The Swamp.
What they know is that it must utilize the talent they have in the right ways to be successful.
"I think that Jim and I are like-minded in the way we think,” Nussmeier said. "As you go through coaching, you find people that are like-minded, the people you have respect for that you watch, that you say, 'Wow, he does it really good and he does this.'
"We're going to do what our personnel allows us to do and fit our system to what our people can do. We're not going to get stuck in a box."
They can't be if they want to get Florida's offense from being stuck in mud.
Nussmeier said the assumption early on is that he will call plays. Still, he and McElwain will work closely together on devising Florida's offensive plan the way Muschamp and former defensive coordinator D.J. Durkin did with the defense.
What that offense will look like come fall? Well, Nussmeier isn't sure. He is trying to find his way around the office.
"Honestly, I wish I could go further into that one, but we're not at that point yet," he said. "I'd be giving you false information. I could tell you we'd be doing this, this and this. But we're not there."
But he's here. And for McElwain, that's a big step in the right direction.
"Look at what he has done,” McElwain said. "He followed up what I did at Alabama and took it to the next level. He was in a tough situation and tried to resurrect it [at Michigan]. What I like about him is he took the challenge. He's one of the best.”
