Jim McElwain was fired, and now Florida’s got a coaching search. Get caught up quickly

Florida is making a coaching change from Jim McElwain, the school made official last Sunday. After two and a half seasons and an 22-12 record, the Gators are moving on form the head coach who once had a lot of promise and delivered on some of it, sort of.

McElwain went from safe to fired over the course of about three weeks, and the Gators now get a head start on finding his replacement.

Florida’s first two seasons under McElwain featured two SEC East Championships, but the offensive progress was virtually nonexistent. It was little surprise that the Gators got blown out by Alabama twice in a row in Atlanta. His third season got off to a 3-3 start before his team got blown out by the Georgia Bulldogs 42-7 last week.

It’s not, but McElwain and Florida never really jelled. What gave Florida the final incentive to move on from McElwain were his comments about death threats on Monday of last week:

I think it’s a pretty good kind of lesson for the way things are. There’s a lot of hate in this world and a lot of anger. And yet, it’s freedom to show it. The hard part is, obviously, when the threat’s against your own players, death threats to your families, you know, the ill will that’s brought upon out there. And yet, you know, I think it’s really one of those deals that really is a pretty good testament to what’s going on out there nationally. A lot of angry people. In this business, we’re the ones that you take the shots at. And that’s the way it is.

Florida’s response implied some skepticism regarding his claims. In a statement hours after McElwain’s press conference, the Gators said the coach “offered no additional details” about the alleged threats.

Before Florida’s game Saturday against Georgia, it was reported Florida was negotiating a buyout with McElwain, which Florida Athletic Director Scott Stricklin denied.

During the Gators’ blowout loss to Georgia, ESPN reported Florida was looking to cut ties with him amid the death threat claims:

After failing to find any evidence to substantiate claims made by McElwain this week that family and players received death threats, Florida administrators have worked to see if McElwain’s allegations were enough to relieve the university from paying McElwain’s full buyout of $12.9 million if he were to be fired.

Sources told ESPN that they believe the university has enough cause to fire McElwain without having to pay his buyout. Sources also said that if McElwain were to be relieved of his duties, defensive coordinator Randy Shannon would be asked to be the team’s interim coach.

By Sunday, Florida officially announced it was “mutually parting ways” with McElwain.

Expect former Florida coach Jim McElwain to receive substantially less than his $12.9 million buyout – perhaps only $4 million – because McElwain kept his death threats from university officials and also his agent’s reluctance to fight Florida for the full buyout, sources told me.

Florida officials believe it could fire McElwain with cause, nullifying the buyout completely. UF believes it shouldn’t have to pay McElwain “anything” because he withheld claims about death threats from university officials.

After McElwain mentioned his death threats to the media, the university asked McElwain for more details, but he didn’t provide any additional information. So, UF believes, either: (1) McElwain made the university potentially liable by not disclosing death threats made to himself, his family, other coaches or players or (2) he lied about the death threats.

Yep.

There are a few obvious candidates.

One is Mississippi State head coach Dan Mullen, who’s in his ninth year in Starkville, where he’s brought consistent success to a program with little history of it. Stricklin was hired by Florida from MSU one year ago, so the two have a previously successful work relationship. Mullen also was Florida’s offensive coordinator from 2005-08 with Urban Meyer.

UCF head coach Scott Frost has led the Knights to a 7-0 start this season, and his team has a definite shot at a New Year’s Six bowl bid. It helps that the Knights are currently first in the nation in scoring offense, too. Frost was Oregon’s wide receivers coach and offensive coordinator from 2009-15.

And Oregon head coach Willie Taggart is in his first season in Eugene after turning around WKU and USF. While it seems a little unlikely he’d make the jump after just one season, there are obvious reasons why he should be considered:

And how about offensive improvement, which McElwain struggled to do in Gainesville, despite being hired to fix that?

At USF, that was Taggart’s specialty:

He’s in the business of scoring points, and for USF, business has been good. The Bulls have been around the top 10 in scoring offense all year, averaging better than 40 points per game. The advanced stat S&P+ also sees a top-10 unit, so it’s not just a matter of the Bulls playing non-power defenses in the American Athletic Conference.

USF’s offensive improvement under Taggart has been fairly remarkable. The Bulls were 106th in scoring offense the year before Taggart arrived, then 122nd and 119th in his first two years. They jumped to 41st in 2015, and now they’re elite.

Here are 18 more names, plenty of whom shouldn’t be in the public discussion, but will be. And it you want to get really silly, you can bet on Jon Gruden and Tim Tebow getting it.

He might not get a head coaching job for 2018, but there’s definitely a chance he could land on on an offensive staff. In fact, McElwain’s former boss at Alabama, Nick Saban, said he reached out to his former offensive coordinator this week, according to AL.com:

Saban said he’d reached out to McElwain this week but left a message since he couldn’t reach him. They share an agent in Jimmy Sexton, so Saban sent a message to McElwain through him.

“As the week winds down here,” Saban said, “I’d certainly like to have an opportunity to let him know that we’re here to support him in every way that we can.”