TAMPA — Doug Nussmeier doesn’t read your tweets if he did Jimmy Kimmel would be able to take a night off from his talk show as Nussmeier would have more than enough copy to cover the 60 minute show for the segment “Mean Tweets.”
Jim McElwain’s coordinators address the media one time a year, before fall camp at media day. It’s something McElwain learned from Nick Saban at Alabama and a rule he enjoyed. He feels like it’s easier to have one message come from the program, one that the head coach dictates. This week the Outback Bowl mandated that the coordinators speak to the media, so Nussmeier faced reporters for the first time since August.
“Welcome to the big leagues, as they say,” Nussmeier said when asked about being criticized. “You know, that’s part of — you wake up in this league every day, you better bring your best. Because there’s great coaches and there’s great players. And you ain’t gonna have a week off in this league against any team we play.”
Jim McElwain has correctly noted that he wasn’t brought to Florida because the Gators had been lighting up the scoreboard. He tabbed Nussmeier, who replaced McElwain as Alabama’s offensive coordinator when McElwain took the head coach position at Colorado State, to run his offense at Florida. 2015 was a rough go after Will Grier was suspended for testing positive for performance enhancing drugs. There was hope that the offense would progress in year two but it simply hasn’t.
The Gators head into the Outback Bowl with the 116th ranked offense in the country (345.1 yards per game). They finished the 2015 season ranked 112th (334 ypg). The Gators have had to deal with injuries. Left tackle David Sharpe is the only player on the Gators’ offense that has started every game this season. The Gators also lost their starting quarterback for a second straight season when Luke Del Rio sprained his knee against North Texas.
“Obviously injuries are a part of the game, and unfortunately Luke got hurt, two injuries, the whole deal,” Nussmeier said. “Just tried to get him healthy. We’re not going to talk about them, we don’t talk about it, I let coach talk about those things publicly, but obviously he was banged up. And he needed time to heal.”
None of the Florida coaches have tried to make excuses for the injuries.
“[They will] Make you grow up fast,” Randy Shannon said. “It makes you grow up really fast. The maturity factor has to come in and step in.”
While Nussmeier denies reading what fans or media say about him and his play calling, his players are active on social media and they disagree. Star receiver Antonio Callaway called the heat on Nussmeier “unfair.”
“I mean, yeah, I honestly do because sometimes Coach Nuss calls the right play but the play isn’t run, everybody doesn’t do their assignments to the best of their ability,” said Callaway. “So the play doesn’t look like it’s drawn up, you could say.”
Austin Appleby echoed those sentiments. Next to Nussmeier Appleby gets criticized as much as anyone else in Orange and Blue. The graduate transfer noted that it takes all eleven players on offense functioning on the same page. What could look like a bad pass might be a wrong route. An open receiver getting missed or overlooked turns a good play call into a punting situation. Nussmeier hasn’t let any of that discourage him. Everyone around the program consistently says they’re heading in the right direction.
“This is as competitive as it gets, and of course it bothers you. You wanna have success. You wanna do great,” Nussmeier said. “You don’t go into something and say, ‘I don’t wanna do well.’ You look at it and you go, ‘Hey, I know we’re capable of a lot. But we’ve got to do it consistently. Day-in, day-out, week-in, week-out.’”
Florida will only lose Appleby, Ahmad Fulwood and potentially David Sharpe on offense. They’re young and they’ve had a lot of experience and playing time already. There have been outs, or excuses the first two years. In 2015 it was an offensive mess left by the previous staff coupled with the loss of your starting quarterback. The quarterback issue and injuries plagued the team in 2016. Starting in 2017 the fans will demand progress. McElwain was brought in to fix the offense and he brought in Nussmeier to be the guy to help him do just that. They haven’t accomplished that in two years. Two strikes against them.
“I think it’s easy to focus on outcome,” Nussmeier said. “You’ve got to start with process, and it first starts with culture. You start with your culture and how you’re developing as a team, and you’ve got young players in there and we’re trying to teach them to grow together.”