McElwain watched everything Saban did between 2008 and 2011, taking unbelievably detailed notes about organizing, managing, administering, controlling and overseeing a program.
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That was the second of 11 straight games in which Stanford scored at least 30 points as Hogan and Heisman Trophy contender Christian McCaffrey have put the Cardinal in position for a possible playoff berth if either Clemson or Alabama is upset Saturday in their conference title games.
Saturday night the 2015 SEC Western Division Champion second ranked Alabama Crimson Tide (11-1) will do battle with the 2015 SEC Eastern Division Champion eighteenth ranked Florida Gators (10-2) for the 2015 SEC Championship. McElwain comes in and has a defense already set. Robinson was suspended for last week’s loss to FSU for a violation of team rules, but was reinstated after McElwain met with the Gators’ seniors to decide whether he could play.
McElwain has genuine reverence for Saban. It’s obvious when he talks about his former boss and even more evident in how he’s rebuilding the program in Gainesville.
“We are blessed to have the opportunity to come to a world-class institution and world-renowned city and play a role in the life of the campus and community”, Richt said. I do the same thing here.
“Jim is a really serious, attention-to-detail sort of guy that has a fantastic sense of humor”, Saban said. “Sometimes the public perception doesn’t do justice for what a good guy he is”. The Spartans held the the Buckeyes an embarrassing 132 yards that day, and tOSU’s offense was so awful that Ezekiel Elliott, who gained only 33 yards on 12 carries, went off on his coaches for not giving him the ball enough then said he was going pro and the devil with all this jazz.
Florida instead must try to leap from discovery mode to some kind of a eureka moment in one Georgia Dome evening. In Richt’s 15 years in Athens, his Bulldogs won seven or fewer games just once – a 6-7 2010 campaign, from which he immediately bounced back with back-to-back 10-win seasons that included a pair of SEC East titles.
Alabama coach Nick Saban was all business. “He’s a good teacher”.
Of course, you can torch all of this gloomy analysis if Florida gets a defensive score and maybe a big punt return from Antonio Callaway and, as long as we’re spitballing here, a insane Johnny Football scramble or two from Harris. He’s innovative in terms of some of the things that he does and the problems he creates. “So there’s a lot of positive attributes there I think”.
Stanford outscored USC 41-21 in a defense-free regular season clash back in September.
McElwain brought his notebook and vision for how to run a program to Fort Collins, Colorado, and made an immediate impact.
In just a few months, McElwain changed a decades-old approach to one of the league’s football powerhouses. They must be bold and bodacious and do something daring and different.
In short, he wants Florida to be more like Alabama. Florida went 7-5 in Will Muschamp’s final season as head coach. But he hopes to eventually get a stand-alone football facility, upgrade dorms and make it so everything is top of the line in a world in which food, facilities, facets and features make a difference in the ever-expanding college football arms race.
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Not many gave them much of a chance. “You’ve got to fight your best fight in the ring and that’s certainly what we’re going to have to do in this game”.
