Report: Florida discussing how to fire Jim McElwain

By Adam Silverstein
October 28, 2017
Report: Florida discussing how to fire Jim McElwain
Football

Image Credit: ESPN Images

The Florida Gators fell to 3-4 on Saturday with their worst loss to the Georgia Bulldogs since 1982. Before the result was even final, the Florida administration reportedly began discussing how it can rid itself of the man who got the team in this mess, head coach Jim McElwain.

ESPN reported during Saturday’s game that the Gators are looking into whether they can fire McElwain for cause, thus allowing the team to escape paying him a buyout that approaches $13 million.

A for-cause firing would mean Florida believes — and would likely have to prove in court — McElwain did something that violated a clause in his employment contract. In this case, after McElwain was seemingly unable to provide evidence of death threats he said at a Monday press conference had been received by members of the team and/or their families, the Gators could claim that his allegation was not in the best interest of the program and thus casts a poor light on the team and university as a whole.

Sources told ESPN that they believe the university has enough cause to fire McElwain without having to pay his buyout. Sources also said that if McElwain were to be relieved of his duties, defensive coordinator Randy Shannon would be asked to be the team’s interim coach.

Florida denied ahead of Saturday’s game that it had begun discussing a potential buyout of McElwain’s contract with agent Jimmy Sexton. This was in response to a report earlier in the day.

“At the end of the day, we were all brought here to win and we haven’t done it. The concern isn’t about my job. It’s about the players and my staff. That’s the concern; it isn’t about me,” McElwain said after the game.

He continued: “Nothing in this world surprises me. I know what I was brought here to do: to fix the offense, and we haven’t done that. We haven’t won enough, and we haven’t won championships.”

Though McElwain is the first coach in SEC history to reach the SEC Championship Game in his two seasons, the Gators have never looked like a truly competitive football team under his leadership. Florida has suffered consecutive blowout losses to Alabama and Florida State, and it was similarly noncompetitive in two games against Michigan over a three-year period. UF was nearly shutout by UGA, which would have ended a streak of now 368 straight contests in which it had scored offensive points, the longest streak all-time.

McElwain was hired in December 2014 as the 24th head football coach in the history of the Florida program. He was the oldest coach in Gators history at the time of his hiring. As Florida had to pull McElwain away from Colorado State, it negotiated a massive buyout with CSU that included deferred payments and a home game at UF in 2018. It now looks like McElwain will not be around to coach against his former team.

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