The Post Where We Admit That Michigan Has In Fact Hired Jim McElwain
good offensin' [Chris Cook]
So Michigan just hired Jim McElwain to coach football in some capacity. That capacity is apparently offensive coordinator and WR coach. This doesn't make much sense to me. McElwain becomes Michigan's fourth offensive coordinator, more or less, along with Harbaugh, Drevno, and Hamilton. He may be second amongst equals, for whatever that's worth.
McElwain was a notoriously bad recruiter at Florida, failing to crack the top ten once during his tenure and finishing no better than fifth in the SEC, and that was with a steady stream of Questionable Dudes that came highly rated but had seen various other teams back off. Those questionable dudes saw their super powers combine into a credit card scam that got a tenth of the team suspended last year. If you were to go back and re-rank recruiting classes by removing confirmed knuckleheads, Florida would plummet towards the nether reaches of the SEC.
Meanwhile, McElwain had a public meltdown about an internet joke, twice, made an unsupported assertion he had received death threats that almost got him fired for cause, and marketed his own barbecue sauce in the midst of a disastrous, tenure-ending football season.
Whatever offensive aptitudes he seemed to demonstrate at Alabama and Colorado State evaporated in a haze of ineptitude in Florida. Spencer Hall:
Statistically, Jim McElwain turned 2017 Florida into 2017 Rutgers. There is no evidence McElwain or the offensive staff can develop a quarterback or build an offensive line or tell a wideout how to run a route. There’s actually less and less evidence the offense is even designed competently. The big highlight—maybe the only real morbid but funny highlight, really—of watching Gary Danielson this season call a long string of SEC blowouts has been him literally correcting play design for Florida on the screen. He does this when not openly laughing at false starts and procedural penalties. It’s a full to-do list when watching Florida football, and just getting through half of it should earn him an Emmy.
Yours truly surveying the devastation after the opener:
Watch Florida left tackle Martez Ivey start yelling at the left guard on the Furbush touchdown before the play is even over:
You! Come over here! I know you're in the middle of a football play, but look upon the destruction your incompetence has wrought! Feel in your very bones the touchdown you have given up and shall never recover from! Eat at Arby's!
Also here is Florida's quarterback getting hammered on a rollout that Michigan rushed three on.
That's some dystopian business right there, and we should slow our roll a little given the evident dysfunction of the opponent. How much? I don't know.
McElwain doing well at Alabama proves little; having a decent offense at Colorado State because five-star Dee Hart needed a landing spot and rushed for 6.6 YPC doesn't prove a whole lot more. What success Florida did have under McElwain was an artifact of a trash SEC East and a defense he inherited from Will Muschamp.
On the positive side, McElwain does have a lengthy tenure as a collegiate WR coach stretching from 1987 to 2005, with the odd QB or special teams duty thrown in. And he probably has some great stories about John L Smith, who he coached under for five years at Louisville and Michigan State.
The best thing about this hire is that it doesn't really matter since it's Harbaugh's offense anyway. While McElwain comes in with a very Greg Robinson track record—aging successes and recent debacles paired with press interactions that make him seem slightly insane—he's not going to be put in charge of half the team and subsequently told to run something he's completely unfamiliar with. But neither is he likely to move the needle in recruiting or help organize the team. He'll seem like a brilliant WR coach because Michigan's WRs are about to get a lot better by virtue of not being freshmen, in the same way Ron English was a god until he wasn't.
Maybe once released from the prison of being a head coach he's actually a good offensive coordinator—but Michigan doesn't need tactical help. They need someone who can throw a ball straight and an offensive line that doesn't get that guy and his backup murdered. They do need a skill position coach and McElwain sort of fits there. He seems more like a duplicate of a duplicate, and he is very hard to take seriously after his year of baffling press conferences and Keystone Kops coaching.
He's a tenth assistant, and therefore more of a missed opportunity than a burgeoning disaster. And since every other thing with a track record immediately defies it when it arrives to do Michigan football things (except Don Brown, God bless Don Brown), maybe he'll be brilliant.
February 16th, 2018 at 3:09 PM ^
Harbaugh damn sure better know what he’s doing.
February 16th, 2018 at 3:21 PM ^
February 16th, 2018 at 3:11 PM ^
February 16th, 2018 at 3:12 PM ^
February 16th, 2018 at 3:13 PM ^
If you honestly believe a single running back turned Colorado State from a 3-9 team to a 10-3 team, I don't know what to tell you.
McElwain has a solid resume. One that definitely justifies a co-coordinator position. I can't pretend he's a perfect hire, but the doom and gloom here is not merited. The only truly bad season he's been associated with in the past decade is last year at Florida, and that can largely be attributed to losing 10% of his team to suspensions.
February 16th, 2018 at 3:19 PM ^
February 16th, 2018 at 3:20 PM ^
McElwain is 4 years removed from success at CSU and Bama. GERG was a decade plus removed from his successes when Michigan hire him.(Not gonna count him being co-DC at Texas when they got shredded a lot and VY bailed them out, and Gene Chizik was the other co-DC).
What Robinson did to Syracuse is nothing to what McElwain did to Florida.
February 16th, 2018 at 8:30 PM ^
February 16th, 2018 at 3:25 PM ^
"The post where we admit" lol, come on man.
February 16th, 2018 at 3:25 PM ^
February 16th, 2018 at 3:35 PM ^
shocker. He's not a HC, he's an assistant and has had success as an assistant. I assume you've spent a ton of time with him in the lockerroom and out on the town since he's a disaster professionally and personally.
February 16th, 2018 at 4:22 PM ^
February 16th, 2018 at 9:54 PM ^
February 16th, 2018 at 3:38 PM ^
While I share many of Brian's doubts about McElwain's ultimate impact here, that comparison with GERG is tendentious crap.
February 16th, 2018 at 3:48 PM ^
February 16th, 2018 at 3:48 PM ^
Yeah. This whole post is steeped in hyperbole that lacks much connection to reality. GERG was a failed DC at multiple stops and was an NFL guy for, what, a decade plus before coming to Michigan? McElwain was a fine OC/HC literally everywhere he went except Florida, which is also the place that somehow broke Urban Meyer. Like, at some point we might look back at Florida and figure out that all these failed coaches weren't the problem.
February 16th, 2018 at 4:06 PM ^
February 16th, 2018 at 6:00 PM ^
February 16th, 2018 at 6:15 PM ^
February 16th, 2018 at 4:03 PM ^
February 16th, 2018 at 4:50 PM ^
Ignoring the total debacle that was Florida last year would be irresponsible writing.
February 16th, 2018 at 5:46 PM ^
You could potentially argue that some of the not strongly backed opinions he went on about were lazy writing as well.
February 16th, 2018 at 6:17 PM ^
Saying that is fine. Saying this...
This is pathetic. Brian has been infected by the Maizen Bitch virus. Sad. You’d better get your shit together, and get some treatment for that virus, unless you’re planning on looking for a job sometime soon.Are two very, very different things.
February 16th, 2018 at 4:06 PM ^
February 16th, 2018 at 6:12 PM ^
February 16th, 2018 at 7:37 PM ^
Yeah, just like he did at Florida.
No, wait . . .
February 17th, 2018 at 8:30 AM ^
That JM gets as much credit for Bama's O as Don Brown does for D here. As they are the opposite side of the ball of the HCs background.
Obviously. Saban brought in some talent but he wouldn't keep JM around if he wasn't competent.
February 16th, 2018 at 4:06 PM ^
February 16th, 2018 at 6:10 PM ^
February 16th, 2018 at 6:36 PM ^
Why be a dick?
February 16th, 2018 at 4:16 PM ^
The constant nitpicking of everything the team does and never-ending stream of overreactions is probably at least one of the factors in keeping the program from reaching its potential.
February 16th, 2018 at 4:23 PM ^
February 16th, 2018 at 6:39 PM ^
I don't mean to get political, but I blame Donald Trump for this problem.
February 16th, 2018 at 7:06 PM ^
I say wait and see. I'd rather be bored than trash my team, but who am I to have an opinion?
February 16th, 2018 at 6:55 PM ^
The entire purpose of this blog is to be a home to intelligent, well-researched, informative analysis about Michigan sports, with particular emphasis on football.
For many years, when UM was horrid at football, Brian patiently found the good to go along with the bad. When he couldn't find the good anymore, he actively participated in getting Hoke removed-- he didn't just whine, he didn't just bitch, and he certainly didn't just shut up and trust the Powers That Be.
Since Harbaugh has taken over, Brian has written about a lot of different aspects of the football team and the program as a whole. Many of those have been quite optimistic (IMHO overly optimistic, even).
But when it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and acts like a duck, Brian is not going to call it a Ferrari just to prove he's a Loyal Fan or something like that. When mistakes are made, he's going to analyze them and write about them, because that's, like, the entire purpose of this site, which has been his life's work for a long time.
This hire is likely to be a bad one. As he puts it in context, it likely doesn't matter a whole lot if it turns out to be bad, since it's the 10th assistant, which didn't even exist until this year.
Brian supplies factually correct, legitimate reasons to call this out as a likely whiff for this staff position. If you don't like that, you should likely be reading one of the many other Michigan sites that have never aspired to be anything more than ra-ra pep-talk fan echo chambers. That's not what got Brian and MGoBlog here, and it's not what's going to make it the place to be when/if Michigan starts dominating on the gridiron in the future.
February 16th, 2018 at 7:20 PM ^
February 16th, 2018 at 8:21 PM ^
February 17th, 2018 at 1:53 PM ^
February 16th, 2018 at 9:16 PM ^
February 17th, 2018 at 1:22 PM ^
February 16th, 2018 at 4:16 PM ^
February 16th, 2018 at 4:33 PM ^
- 2015 SEC Head Coach of the Year
- 2014 MWC Head Coach of the Year
- 2x AFCA Regional Coach of the Year (2014 & 2015)
- 2x SEC East Division Titles
- 44-28 record as a HC and 2-1 in Bowls
- Strong track record of 16 years as a WR coach
- 4yrs as OC at Alabama with 2 National Titles
His basic offensive philosophy is power with a balanced mix of run and pass. He also incorporated the pistol at CSU which was highly effective within his power constraint (just like JH did at SF). McElwain is a total fit with Harbaugh.
Drevno gets to focus exclusively on the OL without the confusion of the Frey experiment.
Pep gets to focus exclusively on QB development and the passing game.
McElwain will take over the WRs who are in need of professional development versus being covered by a grad assistant like last year (to me this is potentially the huge upgrade).
If these guys can check their egos at the door, the game-planning dynamics could be outstanding. U-M's offensive identity will now be fully aligned with power. Herbert was an important hire to get the OL up a notch in physicality to support the power philosophy.
After all the concerns on this specific hire dissipate, these changes in their totality might just work. Go Blue !!!
February 16th, 2018 at 4:46 PM ^
is certainly showing here. I really don't see it as bad as you seem to be pointing toward a further downturn. His offenses at Alabama were capable of both running and passing effectively which I am pretty confident that we will be better at this year. Our QB play is well documented above and from some of the information we saw from last year, Dylan may be more of an answer than Brandon. Don't believe it will ever get to that level due to Shea being available, but if it does, I believe Dylan will be the kind of QB that can be successful under Harbaugh. Way too much doom and gloom in Wolverine Land right now. Onward and Upward we go. Go Blue!!!
February 16th, 2018 at 5:03 PM ^
February 16th, 2018 at 7:51 PM ^
You will never get that clarification.
You will have to infer it yourself from the way the season plays out.
February 16th, 2018 at 5:24 PM ^
Yikes. The best thing you can say about those yellow on yellow unis is that now we know what they look like, so we don't ever have to do them again.
February 16th, 2018 at 5:50 PM ^
February 16th, 2018 at 7:39 PM ^
That's like the least weird thing about them.
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