Florida Gators need an Outback Bowl win over Iowa

For the second straight season the Florida Gators will face a Big 10 opponent in a bowl game following embarrassing blowout losses to Florida State and Alabama.

Last year it was a battle of first year head coaches when Jim McElwain took on Michigan Wolverines head coach Jim Harbaugh. Florida rolled over and played dead to the tune of a 41-7 drubbing that may not even have been as close as the score.

“That speaks volumes and really about each person’s character that was involved in that event. I can speak personally, I was embarrassed,” McElwain said on a teleconference Sunday night. “It happens. It happens in a lot of programs, but this is one that they’ve got to understand we’re representing the Gators and that’s different. And I felt that in today’s meeting.”

It can’t happen this year.

The way the 2015 season ended was written off by bad quarterback play holding the offense as a whole back but three straight losses to end McElwain’s first season left fans queasy, uncertain about the future. If the Gators end the second season in a row under McElwain with three-straight losses, the natives will become restless.

The matchup with Iowa won’t cause a lot of excitement among the fans or the players themselves.

Iowa (8-4) will bring the nation’s 77th ranked scoring offense (26.8) and the 12th ranked total offense (333.3). Florida brings the nations 115th ranked total offense and 110th ranked scoring offense.

For what they lack in offensive prowess, Iowa is at least coming into the bowl game with momentum. The Hawkeyes upset Michigan and then won on the road at Illinois before closing out a three-game winning streak with a 40-10 blowout of Nebraska.

“Our first game in November (a 41-14 loss at Penn State), it wasn’t much fun. But I thought the guys did a good job getting back up on their feet, and then certainly they went out and competed as hard as they could that week against a very good Michigan team,” Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said. “It went right down to the last play, but I think that was really representative of the kind of football team we have. You can’t make a rebound like that, I don’t think you can make a recovery like that if you’re not working with high-character people.”

The Gators coaching staff has already hit the road recruiting Sunday. They’ll continue recruiting before returning to Gainesville for 15 bowl practices that will be critical for the team moving forward next year. Jim McElwain needs to find a quarterback. They need to identify the players that will step up in the wake of losing, potentially, up to nine starters on defense and they need to continue trying to find playmakers on offense.

The honeymoon period is over with McElwain. Fans are fed up with the offense, fed up with the way the past two seasons have ended. Beating Iowa won’t make all of those feelings go away, but another disappointing bowl game loss to a Big 10 team will make things worse. Florida needs this game in a bad way.

Nick de la Torre
A South Florida native, Nick developed a passion for all things sports at a very young age. His love for baseball was solidified when he saw Al Leiter’s no-hitter for the Marlins live in May of 1996. He was able to play baseball in college but quickly realized there isn’t much of a market for short, slow outfielders that hit around the Mendoza line. Wanting to continue with sports in some capacity he studied journalism at the University of Central Florida. Nick got his first start in the business as an intern for a website covering all things related to the NFL draft before spending two seasons covering the Florida football team at Bleacher Report. That job led him to GatorCountry. When he isn’t covering Gator sports, Nick enjoys hitting way too many shots on the golf course, attempting to keep up with his favorite t.v. shows and watching the Heat, Dolphins and Marlins. Follow him on twitter @NickdelatorreGC