Jim McElwain spent the night tossing and turning unable to sleep. He lay awake worrying about what his team would do on the field.
You can’t blame him; the next day was big, it would be the first time McElwain saw his team in action for their first scrimmage.
“Just not knowing how all those young guys are going to compete the first day on the stage of The Swamp,” McElwain said of what kept him up that night. “Obviously, a lot of those guys are going to have to take a lot of reps for us, right? Yet, I was really proud of how they competed. I guess that’s what I’m getting at. It wasn’t too big.”
The first scrimmage was a success. McElwain was pleased with the way his offense moved the ball as well as how Geoff Collins’ group played on the flip side. Scrimmages are a catch-22. If the offense is moving the ball well what does that say about your defense? If the defense is getting consistent stops, is your offense ineffective?
Fall camp continued and McElwain rested much easier before Florida’s second scrimmage of the fall.
Between that second scrimmage and today, McElwain has had to make some tough choices. He had to suspend Alex McCalister, Latroy Pittman and Marcus Maye for a violation of team policy and he named a starting quarterback in Treon Harris. These are tough calls that also may have kept McElwain up at night but his longest night will be Friday night.
“I don’t ever sleep real good on Fridays before games,” McElwain said on Wednesday. “I guess the day that I probably sleep well on that night might be the day we get the heck out of this business and go do something else.”
The Florida Gators will host the New Mexico State Aggies on Saturday in what will be McElwain’s debut as the head coach of the University of Florida football team. McElwain has always dreamed of a job like this, being the head man at a major Division I program like Florida. He’s experienced a spring game; the speaking obligations throughout the offseason but Saturday will be the first time he steps foot in front of 90,000 screaming fans.
His ears will ring when “Here Come the Gators” is drowned out by cheers and he’ll be enveloped by groans for every dropped pass that hits the grass. The energy he’ll experience on Saturday night from the sold out crowd will be like nothing he’s experienced in the past three years at Colorado State.
Saturday night will begin the Jim McElwain era. Florida fans are so starved for offense that pretty much anything Mac’s offense does will illicit rave reviews.
McElwain will probably end up spending most of Friday night on the couch with Claire-a-bell, the family Yorkie Poo. He’ll go over the gameplan, the first eight offensive plays that he scripted and drilled into his team on Thursday and he’ll wonder how his young team will react. If he was worried how his young players would react to a scrimmage inside of an empty stadium, imagine what he’ll be thinking when those same young players — 13 to 15 freshmen should get some form of playing time on Saturday — when they take the field for the first time in front of the Gator faithful.
The questions are plenty, some answers will come on Saturday, and some will have to wait weeks or even the entire season to be answered. Just try to get some sleep tonight, Coach.
You’ve got a game tomorrow.