Jim McElwain earns signature win in Baton Rouge

BATON ROUGE, LA — The Florida Gators program was at a fork in the road Saturday afternoon. A win and Jim McElwain would be the first coach to lead his team to consecutive SEC Championships in his first two seasons. A loss and the honeymoon would be over between McElwain and the fan base.

The Gators (8-2, 6-2 SEC) took a right with a 16-10 win over LSU (6-4, 4-3) in Death Valley.

Two weeks ago the Gators suffered a humiliating loss on the road at Arkansas. The Gators hadn’t won a road game against a SEC West opponent sine 2012 at Texas A&M. It was Johnny Manziel’s first collegiate start. Jim McElwain was also 1-5 against ranked opponents as the head coach of the Gators.

“We came in here to build a program and build an organization people can be proud of and doing it the right way. That’s the way we’re doing it,” McElwain said after the game. “Things aren’t always pretty. This time of year’s pretty in Atlanta. It’s the second year we’ll go see it.”

The Gators were a 13.5-point underdog, meaning the win today was the biggest upset for the Gators in four decades. The Gators did what they needed to do on Saturday. It wasn’t pretty, but they held strong in the red zone, made one big play that they needed to on offense and leaned on a strong rushing performance by Jordan Scarlett.

“That’s what it’s all about, playing Gator football. Make the plays when you’ve got to make them, be good when it matters in all phases,” quarterback Austin Appleby said. “We ran the ball when we had to, we made plays in the passing game when we had to. We kept them off-balanced. Our coaches called a great game, and you do what you have to do to win.”

This win, given everything that surrounded the game from it being moved, to the rhetoric that Florida was scared, to the fact that the Gators came into Tiger Stadium without seven starters and won a football game is huge for the program. A loss this week would have divided the fanbase, especially if Tennessee were to win its next two games and clinch the SEC East.

Instead, McElwain got to sit on a podium in the underbelly of a stadium where not too many teams win and talk about the direction of his football program.

“We beat LSU, a very good team, without (Bryan) Cox, (Marcus) Maye, (Jarrad Davis) and (Alex) Anzalone,” cornerback Quincy Wilson said. “That says a lot about the guys behind them that they’re just as good and can play to the same level that they were playing.”

McElwain has laid the foundation. He was given the keys to one of the biggest programs college football has to offer and proved on Saturday that he’s past the stage of having a learner’s permit.

McElwain played 11 true freshmen and eight sophomores on Saturday. Those are his guys, the ones that he recruited to Florida.

“It just shows that Coach Mac, he has a good plan for us,” sophomore running back Jordan Scarlett says. “He believes in his younger guys. He wasn’t too worried about putting us in there and putting in those situations, because he knew we would come out and be successful.”

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