By: JJ Lanier

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

When does a 22-12 overall record, with two division titles and conference championship appearances, not warrant you being able to finish out your third year as head coach?

Apparently when you’re Jim McElwain and you’re the head coach of the Florida Gators.

It’s been a strange tenure for the sea animal loving, former Gator football coach. What started out with all the bombast in aplomb you would expect in a Florida Gator head football coaching hire, it ended with a resounding thud, similar to that of a shark flopping around on the boat.

So, why did something that started out with so much promise and so abruptly? Oh, let me count the ways.

For starters, if you’re going to speak rhapsodic about how great of a quarterback coach you are you better be able to back it up. Essentially, running off the one halfway decent quarterback you had in Will Grier, leaving what seem to be a bunch of Les Miles rejects to run your team, isn’t exactly the best way to back up your claim.

And look, I know that in today’s political climate it’s nothing to hear someone in our government make some outlandish statements and not be held accountable whenever their accusations turn out to be false.

But, considering that most of America cares more about who their football head coaches are as opposed to who is running our country, if you are going to say that you’re an offense of genius you had better be able to prove it.

Secondly, if there’s any team within the SEC that expects you to put points on the board, it’s Florida. When McElwain was hired, almost three years ago, I wrote that Florida fans would rather score 40 points and lose, than score 14 and win.

That may be a bit of an exaggeration on my part, but not by much. If the Gators were one of the best offensive teams in the country, they would have fired Defensive Coordinator, Randy Shannon (who is now the interim coach) and McElwain would still have his job, despite the next reason I’m about to mention.

The theme of this article has been all about accountability and backing up what you say. So, with that in mind, when you say you and your family are receiving death threats, but don’t meet with administration to address those accusations, you’d be better believe you’ve lost all credibility.

When you take into account everything that has happened over the last year- the shark picture, difficulties at quarterback, an inept offense, death threat fiasco- there really isn’t any way you can justify McElwain keeping his job. I’m not normally in favor of a coach losing his job mid-season, but this decision was pretty inevitable.

The question now is, “Where do the Gators go from here”? I like Randy Shannon, but he’s definitely not the answer. Florida is a great enough job to get a big name, but I’m not sure there’s anyone out there they would be interested in.

Plus, bringing in a splashy name hasn’t exactly been the Florida way. (Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer didn’t carry the cache they do now when they arrived in Gainesville).

As for McElwain, it may take him a while to overcome this; specifically the death threat debacle.

Bill Parcells once famously said that “You are what your record says you are”. I bet if you asked Jim McElwain that question today, he’d have a different opinion.