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Jim McElwain to Become Florida Gators Head Coach

By Caleb Calhoun

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Less than a week after Will Muschamp coached his final game with the Florida Gators against the Florida State Seminoles, Jeremy Foley turned to another Nick Saban assistant.

Colorado State Rams head coach Jim McElwain is expected to be announced as the Gators head coach after clearing up a buyout issue with CSU representatives, according to reports you can see here.

The Mountain West Coach of the Year, McElwain coached under Saban from 2008 to 2011 as an offensive coordinator. When he took over at Colorado State in 2012, the program had gone through three straight 3-9 seasons.

But McElwain went 4-8, 8-6, and then 10-2 there.

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At age 52, McElwain’s track record speaks for itself, but the hire is a risk, much more so than other hires may have been. Sure, as a Saban protege who coached in Alabama he has ties to recruiting in the SEC and should be able to recruit, and he showed that he is willing to open up the offense based on the numbers this year, but his success has to be taken with a grain of salt.

The Rams played a very weak schedule this year en route to that 10-2 record, and McElwain could be a clone of Muschamp on the other side of the ball.

It seemed that Muschamp’s failure as a Saban protege would stir Foley away from them, but he went right back to another one.

However, at least McElwain is a proven winner as a head coach. And the last two times Foley hired an actual head coach, Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer, it worked out pretty well.

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