First year Florida Gators head coach Jim McElwain has proved to be a masterful motivator. The quirky coach from Montana, who earned an education degree from Eastern Washington University, has a way of getting his message across to a roster filled with kids mainly from the southeastern United States.
Fans remember his comments prior to the Ole Miss game. The Rebels came to Gainesville as the No. 3 team in the country and McElwain quickly stated that Ole Miss “probably doesn’t hold us in much regard,” and “probably thinks they should beat the heck out of us.”
That message was given to his team until it bounced around in their heads at night, until the idea became Florida’s reality and their rallying cry. There were more impressive motivational tactics, questioning how his team would handle a road trip to Kentucky, “This team is not your same old Kentucky,” said McElwain. A trip to play the “back-to-back SEC Champions” in Missouri, a game against a team that “probably thinks they should have beat us last year” against ECU, you get the picture.
Florida’s 9-7 win over Vanderbilt last Saturday clinched the SEC East title for Jim McElwain and the Florida Gators. McElwain joined Les Miles and Gus Malzahn as the only coaches to lead their teams to the SEC title game in their inaugural seasons. With the SEC East won, how do the Gators get up for a 3-6 (1-6 SEC) South Carolina team this week? Or what about a 2-7 FAU team in two weeks?
“Let’s call it what it is: We are on a championship run,” McElwain said following the Vanderbilt game on Saturday. But these Florida Gators, the team that the media picked to finish fifth in the SEC prior to the season don’t have just one championship in mind.
“Everybody keeps saying Atlanta, we’re trying to get past Atlanta,” starting quarterback Treon Harris said. “We’re trying to get to the national championship game.”
Harris isn’t wrong to think that. The Florida Gators were ranked No. 10 in the initial College Football Playoff rankings and thanks to several teams ranked higher than them faltering last week, should either maintain that ranking or move up. With games against Florida State and Alabama (barring a Tide collapse) in the SEC Championship game, the Florida Gators will be ranked as one of the top four teams in the country if they win out and they will have an opportunity to play for a National Championship.
That focus is too broad though. McElwain is a man of detail. This is a coach who got visibly upset when mentioning that there weren’t flags on top of the goal posts at the practice field. This is a coach that preaches winning each and every practice down, winning that moment, thinking about a game that will be played in two weeks, three weeks or a month from now is something he won’t allow his team to do.
So the question comes up again, with a berth to Atlanta locked up, how do you re-focus on this week, with a trip to play the SEC East bottom dwellers in South Carolina?
“Too much time, guys, we worry in life about results. What we’ve got to understand is to get the results we want, it’s an accumulation of consistent play-by-play, moment-by-moment wins that help you get the result,” McElwain said on Monday. “So keeping our head down, not focusing on anything but what’s important at that moment is something that we’ve got to do.”
Don’t forget that South Carolina is motivated too, Coach.
“They’re playing to go to a bowl game. They’ve got a chance to play the SEC East champs. There’s a heck of a lot of motivation there,” McElwain added about South Carolina.
McElwain will undoubtedly keep the blinders on his football team this week. Based on how Florida’s season has unfolded it would be impossible to get the idea of playing for a National Championship completely out of the minds of his football team but this is what McElwain does. He’s proven to have a Masters degree in psychology this season and he’ll make sure the Gators are ready to play the Gamecocks this Saturday at noon.
Oh yeah, a road game at noon, something Florida hasn’t done yet this season. Even more motivation for McElwain to impart on his players this week.
I would say that and the steroids did Ole Miss in alright.