Gators Have Work Left to Get Where McElwain Envisions

Florida head coach Jim McElwain has led Florida to back-to-back SEC East titles, no small feat for the former Alabama assistant. (Photo: Jay Metz/For UAA Communications)

Gators Have Work Left to Get Where McElwain Envisions

Sunday, December 4, 2016 | Football, Scott Carter

Florida's 54-16 loss to Alabama on Saturday amplified the divide that currently exists between the traditional SEC powers

By: Scott Carter, Senior Writer

ATLANTA – It was the kind of day the Gators are not accustomed to. The kind of day no one in orange and blue wants to see again anytime soon.

Still, what transpired on Saturday in the Georgia Dome was a reality that was in place long before the final score in the 25th Annual SEC Championship Game flashed in lights: Alabama 54, Florida 16.

The No. 1-ranked and defending national champion Crimson Tide, winners of 25 consecutive games and three consecutive SEC titles, are clearly in a league of their own. Alabama is rolling like no other program has in decades, vying for its fifth national championship in eight seasons.

Nick Saban has built a dynasty in Tuscaloosa and Gators coach Jim McElwain, one of those who helped Saban lay the foundation by serving as offensive coordinator on two of those national championship teams (2009 and 2011), clearly understood the magnitude of Saturday's challenge in the Gators' second consecutive trip to Atlanta after a six-year absence.

McElwain said all the right things leading up to the game, pumping up his team's chances publicly and relaying that message to the players. The Gators had a championship to play for, and while no one else gave them a chance, the Gators believed they had one and that's all that mattered.

"I will tell you this: I didn't come here to be close,'' McElwain said following the game. "We came here to be champions of the SEC. That's what you do when you are at the University of Florida. That's the expectation. I understand that."

If you have listened to McElwain closely for the past several days, you know he wasn't just talking about a game that turned into Florida's worst loss since the 1995 national championship game against Nebraska (62-24).

Those words – "I didn't come here to be close" – stretch back to the day two years ago when former UF Athletic Director Jeremy Foley and his internal staff flew cross-country to Colorado to talk to McElwain about leaving Colorado State and coming to Florida to regain the program's swagger.

He spoke a lot about commitment and organizational alignment leading up to Saturday's game, a tip of the hat to Alabama for the way Saban has built the Crimson Tide from the basement to the penthouse.

McElwain envisions a similar system at Florida producing similar results. Gator Nation is demanding after all.

Florida fans' expectations year in and year out include the following criteria: win the SEC East, beat Florida State, win the SEC Championship Game, win the national championship, and look pretty on offense while doing it.

The Gators have accomplished the first goal on that list in each of McElwain's two seasons, no small step for a program that had lost five or more games in four of the previous five years prior to McElwain's arrival.

McElwain's impact was immediate. The Gators won 10 of his first 11 games before dropping off a cliff at the end due to quarterback issues set in motion by Will Grier's suspension. To hopefully rectify those quarterback concerns and boost the offense, McElwain signed Purdue graduate transfer Austin Appleby in the offseason to compete with Luke Del Rio and freshmen Feleipe Franks and Kyle Trask.

35545 — Gators quarterback Austin Appleby shows his dejection after Saturday's SEC Championship Game. (Photo: Courtney Culbreath/For UAA Communications)

It was Appleby in the huddle Saturday in a roller-coaster outing. Appleby completed 26 of 39 passes for 261 yards and two touchowns. Three first-half interceptions are what did in the Gators as Alabama turned those turnovers into 17 points and a 33-16 halftime lead.

"When you're playing a team like that, the details of the pass game have to be so on-point," Appleby said. "There were times when they were great. But too many mistakes."

The Gators did exactly what they wanted to do at the start of the game. Florida drove 64 yards on 10 plays to take a 7-0 lead when Appleby hit Antonio Callaway for a 5-yard touchdown pass.

The Georgia Dome was electric, sensing that perhaps a classic Florida-Alabama matchup – the ninth time the programs have met in Atlanta – might be in store.

Instead, it was a classic Alabama performance: fast, physical, relentless and dominant.

"It's really hard to accept what happened in the game,'' Florida linebacker Jarrad Davis said.

In his analysis of the game to the media afterward, McElwain touched on the obvious – costly turnovers, mistakes on special teams, failure to score on a critical third-quarter possession at Alabama's 2-yard line – as key factors.

But he also spoke of a divide in the two programs. Closing that gap has been Mission No. 1 since he took over the Gators. McElwain knows that for Florida to return to the elite, they have to get past Alabama for the SEC title.

"They never slow down in anything they do as an organization,'' McElwain said. "They're always pushing for what the next thing is. When they finish one thing, it's onto another that's already been planned. It's the same way they do in recruiting.

"That's a real ball squad."

The biggest hurdle McElwain faced when he got to Florida was to upgrade the facilities, which started with the construction of the team's indoor practice facility and continues with the planning of a stand-alone football complex.

The biggest on-field challenge remains solving Florida's quarterback woes that date back to 2010, the first year of the post-Tim Tebow era. For a multitude of reasons, the Gators have been unable to develop an elite quarterback over that period to build around.

While fans on social media yelled for Feleipe Franks to play on Saturday when Appleby struggled – perhaps not the best idea for his psyche – McElwain continues his quest to solve the quarterback dilemma.

"Something we've got to do and we've got to make sure it happens sooner than later,'' he said. "That's my responsibility and it will get done."

As his younger teammates dressed in a quiet locker room, injured senior safety Marcus Maye sat at his locker with his left arm in a sling. Maye, a key leader on McElwain's first two UF teams, was already plugged into some of the chatter over the loss as he looked at his smartphone.

Maye looked around the room and offered a message for Florida fans.

"Don't jump off the bandwagon,'' Maye said. "We're always going to be the Gators. We're always going to be around. The goal is to get to Atlanta. We've been 2-for-2 under Coach Mac. We've just got to find a way to come up with a victory."

That mission started fast Saturday with an early lead.

"Our guys came here to win and I think it showed,'' McElwain said.

And then Alabama responded, and like its previous 24 opponents, hope faded into a loss.

In his brief time at UF, McElwain has proven to be a demanding coach of his administration, of his staff, of his players.

And himself. He worked for Saban so he knows how the best goes about his business and the way it looks.

McElwain will hit the road this week to recruit and map out the future. He'll do so with noise around him and his team, everything from the Oregon rumors to offensive woes to quarterbacks to injuries.

Before he left the podium on Saturday night, McElwain offered a worthwhile reminder of where the season started.

"There's a lot of positives when you look back at the expectations that were there that weren't much for this team, right,'' he said. "As I told them, they've just got to close out the noise from the outside and bond together and let's just go win and not worry about anybody else.

"I'm proud of this football team because I know what they've been through. They're a good group of guys that play their tails off for the Gators. We've got to go to win this bowl game wherever we end up."

That would be another step in the right direction.