Jim McElwain’s last stand ends with a resounding thud in 42-7 loss to Georgia

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – As rumors trickled out Saturday morning – enough that athletic director Scott Stricklin had to address it prior to the game– about coach Jim McElwain’s job security, the question was whether that would galvanize the team or cause it to collapse?

After the 42-7 drubbing by Georgia, we have our answer.

Georgia was the superior team, and likely would have won the game regardless. It wasn’t a surprise the Bulldogs won, or even that they won big. The game was out of hand less than halfway through the first quarter at 21-0. While CBS’ announcers may have had some hope that Florida would be able to get back in the game, Gators fans who’ve watched McElwain go 5-14 in games where the opponent scores more than 14 points knew it was over.

What was a surprise was that after two weeks to prepare, the game plan presented by Florida was the exact opposite of what was needed to exploit Georgia’s tendencies. I’ve been hard on McElwain after losses, and this one is no different.

His job is to put his players in a position to succeed. And he failed to do that both on the offensive and defensive side of the ball.

Offensive performance

Whenever you put up only 7 points – and that TD is in garbage time with a backup QB – there are going to be criticisms of the offense. But many of Florida’s issues are inexcusable.

The Gators did make adjustments during the bye week on offense. They started the game with both Malik Davis and Mark Thompson in the backfield and were going to open the game with a screen to Davis in space. This would have made Georgia’s linebackers respect the run to Thompson, allowing Davis to potentially break a tackle and make an explosive play.

But the Gators committed a false start. On the first play of the game.

But that was just a preview of what was to come. The entire game was a comedy of errors.

• Drive 1 – False start on first play
• Drive 2 – INT by Franks
• Drive 3 – Drop by WR Brandon Powell
• Drive 4 – False start and a fumble by Franks before getting hit (recovered by Florida)
• Drive 5 – False start, holding, false start
• Drive 6 – Drop by TE Moral Stephens
• Drive 7 – Illegal formation, false start, offensive pass interference (dubious) combined with a drop by TE Deandre Goolsby
• Drive 8 – Franks sacked and fumble returned for a TD

That’s just a few of the mistakes made by the offense. The sack returned for a TD was after the game was over and Georgia could tee off on Franks. And even though the interception by Franks was early in the game, it was also a combination of two physical errors. You can live with those.

First, right tackle Jawaan Taylor (65) gets beat immediately by Georgia defensive end Jonathan Ledbetter (13), flushing Franks from the pocket. Franks then overthrows his receiver, who tips the ball right to the Georgia defensive back.

What you can’t live with are drops when Franks does make an effective throw to convert a first down. Powell’s drop was a difficult catch, but it hit him in the hands. Stephens’ drop was perfectly thrown and must be caught.

But the players aren’t the only ones with culpability in this one. In my preview, I said Franks’ legs were going to be the key to getting the ball moving against Georgia. Yet Florida never called a designed run for its QB until Malik Zaire came into the game down 42 points.

There were clearly opportunities for Franks to pull the ball from his running back and gain 8-10 yards because the Georgia defensive end was collapsing to tackle the running back. Looking at the film, it does not look like he had that option and those were straight hand-offs. Once Zaire ran the ball 1 time, it opened up a couple of nice runs for Thompson because the end had to respect the QB run.

But more concerning than the game plan – because lets be honest, they’ve been terrible all year – are the false starts. They were embarrassing. Time after time Florida put itself into terrible down-and-distances, and then asked its quarterback to bail it out for no reason other than poor discipline.

The same thing happened in the SEC Championship Game last season against Alabama. The Gators made mental mistakes all over the field in that game and it cost them.

Against Georgia, the story was much the same. The Gators had little room for error because of the quality of its opponent. Instead, Florida decided to take that room and spend it on stupid penalties, ensuring they would be unable to move the ball.

Defensive Performance

The defensive game plan was more perplexing. I noted in my preview that Georgia QB Jake Fromm likes targeting his wide receivers. I also noted Georgia running backs Sony Michel and Nick Chubb don’t typically catch the ball that much out of the backfield. Because of that, I thought Randy Shannon would abandon the single high safety (cover-1) looks he used against LSU and Texas A&M and return to his traditional cover-2 looks.

Instead, Shannon doubled down on the cover-1 look, so much so he started his nickel defense in lieu of a third linebacker. That defensive look was the one that got burned over and over.

The advantage to the cover-1 is it brings down one safety into the box to aid in stopping the run. However, this opens up the wide receivers outside because the one deep safety has middle-of-the-field responsibility.

That might be OK if you disguise the coverage prior to the snap of the ball. But Florida walked up its safety well before the snap, giving Fromm time to assess that he had 1-on-1 coverage on the outside. Florida cornerback Marco Wilson had perfect coverage, but Georgia was able to convert anyway.

My issue isn’t that Wilson gave up the touchdown pass. It’s that Fromm prefers attacking outside and Florida ran a defense that allowed him to do so.

So why would Shannon do that? Well, apparently he thought Florida needed to have that extra safety in the box to stop the run. And while having the extra man up does help, it has one complication. If the deep safety takes a bad angle, a run that would go for 10 yards against a cover-2 goes for 70.

That’s exactly what happened on the 74-yard run by Michel. Florida safety Chauncey Gardner’s first move is forward, which is a mistake as he has deep responsibilities. He then runs into the referee and Michel is off to the races. This was the most egregious example of the cover-1 scheme blowing up in the Gators face, but it wasn’t the only one.

Florida only switched back to the cover-2 sparingly, insisting on keeping an extra man in the box. They did this even after they brought in a third linebacker to help even further against the run. None of it mattered as Georgia was able to run against those looks as well. But the big plays were what killed Florida, and those all came against cover-1 looks.

Coaching Performance

There were things Florida’s coaches could have done better against Georgia. But Georgia has been the better team and it showed Saturday.

But why Georgia is the better team is perhaps the more relevant question. I already mentioned the false starts by Florida, and those are inexcusable. They are mental errors that shouldn’t be happening in the seventh game of the season. Quite honestly, they shouldn’t be happening in the second.

Two moments in particular stood out to me that illustrate the difference in the two coaching staffs.

This seems like a simple thing. Fromm is under center and then pops up to wave at his wide receiver. But what he is doing is making sure that his team is in a legal formation. Fromm – a freshman making his sixth start – knew that his receiver was misaligned and that the play would be flagged. That’s not an adjustment Florida’s QBs make.

The second moment was up 35-0 with 14 minutes left in the fourth quarter, Fromm was still in the game. Georgia got a delay of game penalty, at which point the telecast showed Kirby Smart yelling, “What the bleep are you doing?” Apparently Fromm didn’t get the message because Georgia got another delay penalty before the next snap.

Smart doesn’t put up with that garbage, and the next snap – and the rest of the game – was played by backup QB Jacob Eason.

After the Alabama game last season, I called for McElwain to hold his players more accountable. He has not been able to do that, on or off the field.

The credit card scandal as a standalone event doesn’t necessarily reflect that poorly on McElwain other than those are guys he recruited. But taken in concert with the lack of discipline and accountability for on-field performance, particularly the dumb penalties, and it does shift the narrative somewhat.

But perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised, as McElwain has struggled to hold himself accountable as well. I ripped McElwain after the Michigan and Texas A&M losses because he pointed the finger at his strength coach, offensive line and “lack of execution” to explain why Florida’s offense was struggling. This was particularly galling after the A&M loss when he had forgotten how many timeouts he had at the end of the first half.

And when faced last Monday with questions about his performance, McElwain decided to attack the Gators fan base with vague references to death threats and absolutely zero follow-up. I have no doubt that McElwain has experienced some knucklehead on Twitter threatening him. But he didn’t bring it up to protect anyone from the threats. He brought it up to deflect blame from where it truly lies.

After the Georgia game, McElwain finally placed the blame where it belongs stating, “I know what I was brought here to do. We haven’t been good on offense, I get it. We’ve won a few games, but we haven’t won enough.”

No, he hasn’t. And now it appears AD Scott Stricklin is going to hold him accountable.

The post Jim McElwain’s last stand ends with a resounding thud in 42-7 loss to Georgia appeared first on SEC Country.