JJ Lanier
McElwain Chomped
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.
Georgia/Florida Rivalry Should Be Bigger
By: JJ Lanier
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
What makes a good rivalry?
Well, for one, you need two teams whose fan bases have a deep seeded hatred for one another. It certainly helps if the players fall in line with that mentality, but with the All-Star games and summer camps high school kids attend nowadays, they don’t seem to have the same animosity towards each other they used to. A lot rides on the fans to keep the intensity of the rivalry going.
Next, you need teams that typically have something to play for. There are hundreds of rivalries, on all levels of sports throughout the country, but nobody really cares about a game where the two teams are constantly awful.
People are interested in watching games where both teams have something on the line, other than pride and bragging rights.
Lastly, in most great rivalries, there is one memorable game that defines the series. That one moment that is played over and over again; making one fan base feel complete and unadulterated jubilation, while the other fan base feels as though they just ate a dozen Nacho Cheese Doritos Locos Tacos Supremes and ran a half marathon.
Yes, there are other factors that go into a great rivalry (a cool nickname always helps), but when you at least have the three I just mentioned, you’re normally guaranteed a popular rivalry.
So, having said all that, my question is: “Why is the Georgia/Florida game not a bigger deal, on a national level?”
For starters, the game checks off all three of the major requirements.
- Hatred among the fan base? Ummm, I feel like I can safely say this isn’t much of an issue when it comes to this game.
- Something to play for? The series has been a little hit and miss when it comes to both teams consistently being ranked, but there always seems to be something on the line for at least one team, more times than not. Obviously for Georgia, there’s a lot on the line this year.
- That defining moment? There is a plethora to choose from, but my favorites are the back to back games in ’07/’08. Georgia’s entire team celebrating in the end zone in ’07, followed the next year by Urban Meyer calling two timeouts with less than a minute left, during a 49-10 victory over Georgia. You don’t get much better than that.
Hell, even the nickname for the game is incredible- “World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.” They’re literally combining two of mankind’s three favorite things; alcohol and football.
The only way it could be any better is if they included all three things and renamed it the “World’s Largest Outdoor Netflix and Chill Cocktail Football Party”.
Yet, as I sit here and write this I can think of 7 rivalry games off the top of my head that receive more recognition that the GA/FL game. Not to say those other games aren’t deserving, but it feels as though this particular rivalry is undervalued on a national scale.
I wish I had the answer for why this matchup isn’t as big of a deal to the rest of the country as it should be- and this is coming from someone who doesn’t really care all that much for either program. All it takes is for one game, or one instance, to get everyone else to take notice. Maybe for this rivalry, this will be the year.
You Favorite SEC Team Is What Tom Petty Song?
By: JJ Lanier
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
I can vividly remember the first time I heard “Mary Jane’s Last Dance”. I was in 8th grade, sitting in the back of an activity bus with a group of friends, on a field trip to see a play of “To Kill A Mockingbird”.
As we were approaching our destination, one of my buddies lent me his Walkman so I could listen to a song I didn’t know, from a group I had never heard before. I was hooked, immediately.
At some point over the following days I bought Tom Petty’s Greatest Hits album, starting a one sided love affair that is still going strong, 25 years after that initial listen.
In honor of the late musician, here is my take on each SEC team’s season so far, in Tom’s own words.
Bye Bye Butch?
By: JJ Lanier
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
It’s difficult in sports and just life in general, to temper your excitement or to realize the world isn’t going to come to an end based off of a singular event.
It’s like listening to “Baby Got Back” and announcing that Sir Mix-A-Lot is the greatest rapper to ever walk the face of the earth, without listening to everything else he’s done. Or in the case of Tennessee head coach Butch Jones, it’s like judging Adam Sandler’s career off “Jack & Jill” but not giving him credit for “Happy Gilmore”.
It’s easy right now to pile onto Jones and to argue that he deserves to be relieved of his duties as the Vols head coach; lord knows there’s been enough of those articles written the past few weeks.
Falcons 3-0 Start A Mirage?
By: JJ Lanier
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
There were a lot of similarities between last year’s Falcons team and the Panthers team from the year before.
Both were NFC South teams that started the season off as afterthoughts when it came to Super Bowl contenders, yet wound up playing in the title game. Both had high octane offenses, led by MVP winning quarterbacks, maximizing the potential fans had been yearning to see.
So, after the Panthers took a nose dive last season, it was almost in the cards for the Falcons to follow suit. If last season was Atlanta’s version of “The Wall”, you couldn’t blame fans for wondering if this would be “The Final Cut.”
Funny thing about sports, and I imagine it’s one of the reasons you enjoy it, is even when things work out almost exactly as you expect them to, the outcome somehow winds up to be completely different.
Georgia Best In SEC East?
By: JJ Lanier
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
At the beginning of the season the SEC was shaping up to be a three headed monster.
You had Georgia, Florida, and possibly Tennessee, all favored at one point or another to contend for the division title.
I know we’re only three weeks in and things can change quicker than the cast of All My Children but right now it feels obvious that Georgia is separating itself from the rest of the pack.
NFC South: Best In Football
By: JJ Lanier
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Go ahead and stop me if you’ve heard this before: everything in the NFL is cyclical. I know, it’s been more times than Stephen A. Smith yells about someone having the “unmitigated gall”, but it’s also extremely accurate.
Five years ago the NFC West was a disaster. Two years ago it was the toughest division in football. This year the entire division, outside of Seattle, will be as inept as the Florida Gator offense.
The past few years the NFC South hasn’t had much to brag about. Obviously, the last two NFC representatives in the Super Bowl have come from the division, which is certainly nothing to sneeze at; it’s just that there hasn’t been much else to get excited about.
That should change this year as the South looks to be the toughest division in the NFC, if not the entire NFL. (The AFC West may have something to say about that last part).
College Football Week One
By: JJ Lanier
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
After 8 long months the wait is finally over: the college football season has finally arrived. And nothing welcomes the beginning of a new year quite like the obligatory “Five Week 1 Prognostications Guaranteed To Go Wrong, But It Doesn’t Matter Because I’ll Write About Something Completely Different Next Week And Never Mention These Predictions Again.” Sounds like a good time, right?
- Georgia will beat Appalachian State, but not by much and will actually trail at some point in the second half.
I know I’m not going on too much of a limb to predict a Georgia win, and as much as I wanted to pick an Appalachian victory, I just can’t do it. The Mountaineers return an experienced team on both sides of the ball and a 5th year senior in Quarterback, Tyler Lamb. They should’ve beaten Tennessee last year and will make UGA work for it this year. The Dawgs are too athletic and too talented not to come away with a win, though.
- Alabama will lose to Florida State.
I know it’s not all that wise to go against Alabama, basically ever, but intelligence has never really been my strong suit. What I do know is this, the last time Nick Saban lost back to back games was probably when he was the head coach of the Miami Dolphins. He handled that adversity so well he decided to leave the NFL and go back to college. My hope is that if he loses to Florida State maybe he’ll leave college football and go back to high school. One can dream, right?
- LSU will fail to score 20 points on a BYU team that thinks about defense the same way Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor think about humility.
Ed Orgeron did some good things for the Tigers last year after replacing Les Miles; mainly reinvigorating the fan base. Their offense SHOULD be better than it was last year, but then again, I should know better than to eat an entire pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream before watching Game of Thrones, yet I do it anyway. Point is, a lot of things that should be different, oftentimes never change. See, LSU Offense.
- South Alabama will beat Ole Miss.
South Alabama is a middle of the pack, Sun Belt conference team, that should have no business bearing any SEC team. Fortunately for them, they’re playing the one SEC team that probably doesn’t have any business winning a SEC game either. I have no idea what to expect from the Rebels this year, except it’s not going to be a pretty site in Oxford.
- The Florida/Michigan game will wind up being the most intriguing game of the weekend.
I have no idea if it’ll be because the play on the field will be that exciting or because there’s a 50/50 chance that Jim Harbaugh and Jim McElwain will fight it out Mortal Kombat style halfway through the game. Either way, one of those two things will happen and it will be glorious to behold.
Now that I have channeled my inner Nostradamus feel free to enter this most sacred of weekends with the knowledge that these outcomes have already been foretold.
Of course, if I happen to be mistaken don’t waste your time letting me know. At that point, I’ll have already forgotten what I said and moved on to my next topic. You didn’t think I would hold myself accountable for my own thoughts, did you?
North Carolina Tar Heels Preview
By: JJ Lanier
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
You’ll have to excuse North Carolina football fans if they’re simultaneously over-zealous, yet skeptical, about any decent football coach their school gets.
You see, after witnessing arguably the most successful ten year period in their program’s history during the Mack Brown era, they still vividly remember losing him to Texas after back to back 10 win seasons. It’s embedded in their psyche, really.
After the coaching carousel they went through after Brown’s departure- Carl Torbush (the Matt Doherty of Carolina football coaches); John Bunting (nice guy, bad coach); Butch Davis (NCAA investigation ring a bell)- you can understand their trepidation when it comes to current head coach, Larry Fedora.
South Carolina Gamecocks Preview
By: JJ Lanier
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
As a college football fan what would you rather see: Your team struggle to a below .500 record and finish near the bottom of your division, but have your in-state rival go through those same pains; or would you want to have a successful season only to see those same rivals win a national title? Basically, is it more important to you that your favorite team wins, or that your least favorite loses?
When it comes the University of South Carolina and their fans, last year was the worst of both those scenarios.
Not only did the Gamecocks finish the season with a record of 6-7 and tied for fifth in the SEC East, but they had to sit and watch the one team they despise more than winning be crowned “Champions”.
