Jim McElwain took to the microphone following the football team’s loss to Florida State on Saturday looking like he’d just been told about a dead relative.
“Guys,” he announced to the assembled reporters, “that was a disappointing ballgame for us.”
It was in crisp contrast to his mood a week earlier after his team beat LSU in the game’s final minutes. At that press conference, he spoke roughly 1,500 glowing words about how proud he was of his team, even taking a subtle shot at his critics.
“I just can’t tell you how proud I am of our players, our staff and happy for the Gator fans that, you know, don’t think we’re very good, but all we do is end up back in Atlanta, right?” he said, referencing UF’s SEC East Champion status. “So that’s pretty cool.”
After the loss to FSU, however, he was less subtle about the criticism.
Speaking for fewer than 500 words, the second-year coach didn’t feel like answering for his team’s struggles, instead opting for such phrases as, “They played their tails off,” on three separate occasions. And when pressed for answers about Florida’s difficulties, he reverted to sarcasm — a common practice for McElwain, and one that’s going to get him in trouble if he continues to lose big games.
It started with the first question, which was about how the team struggled to stop the Seminoles’ star running back Dalvin Cook.
“You watched the game, didn’t you?” he quipped at a reporter. “That guy’s pretty good and our guys did a pretty good job on him.”
I’m not sure how allowing Cook to run for 153 yards and a 5.9 yards-per-carry average can be considered a “good job,” no matter how good he — or anyone — is. But hey, it’s an improvement over last year’s 183 yards. So there’s that.
His sarcasm and temper became more pronounced from there and finally boiled over about half way through the press conference, starting with a question about how his team can put this loss past it and prepare for Alabama.
“I don’t know if they will come back or not,” he said. “It’ll be a heck of a test.”
The reporter who asked that question asked a reasonable follow-up: Does it concern you that you don’t know if they’ll “come back or not?”
“Don’t you think it would?” McElwain answered. “I would say it would. Yeah, I’m concerned.”
But then, after a few more words in between, McElwain wasn’t having it anymore.
“Our team will be ready!” he fired at the reporter. “I have no idea what kind of question that was, but to question that locker room and those players..."
To me, it seems contradictory to acknowledge that yes, he is concerned about how his team will respond this weekend against Alabama and then, in the same breath, ponder how someone could question his players.
After all, it seems that he questioned them before any reporter did.
Finally, he was asked about his team’s consistent offensive ineptitude, which he responded to with more sarcasm.
“You have to block them first,” he answered. “That helps.”
I personally love sarcasm. And normally, I think it’s a good quality that McElwain doesn’t take himself too seriously.
But after flopping against rival Florida State for the second season in a row, it was pretty damn frustrating to hear clever comebacks rather than substantive answers about why his team performed so poorly.
He did give one answer that seemed sincere toward the end of the press conference, however. Asked if seeing what Jimbo Fisher has built at Florida State serves as motivation for what he can accomplish at Florida, McElwain was blunt and confident.
“Yeah, and we’ll get there,” he said. “We’ll get there.”
But the time to get there is inching closer by the day. And McElwain isn’t doing himself any favors by refusing to answer for Florida’s struggles.
Ethan Bauer is the assistant sports editor. You can contact him at ebauer@alligator.org or follow him on Twitter @ebaueri.
Florida coach Jim McElwain, left, and FSU coach Jimbo Fisher meet at mid-field after the Seminoles defeated the Gators 31-13 in an NCAA college football game in Tallahassee, Fla., Saturday, Nov. 26, 2016. (AP Photo/Mark Wallheiser)
