What Happens When Your Team Loses To Coach O?
It was set up as a joke but served as a realistic sign of how far a program had fallen and how desperate its fans were to have a winner.
With the university unable to fork over a $12-million buyout while also paying its recently discarded coach, a disgruntled LSU fan set up a GoFundMe account to pay for buying out Ed Orgeron’s bloated contract, just half a year into Coach O’s first season.
So what happens when you lose to Coach O? At home? In a place called The Swamp?
Jim McElwain, whose seat in Gainesville is starting to heat up, may be about to find out and some feisty Gator fans may – as a joke – set up a GoFundMe account to buy out his contract.
After all, this is the third year of McElwain with the Gators. Its offense, like real gators, is prehistoric. The team plays lifeless and dull and has been surviving on miracle plays and comebacks – thanks Butch Jones! – and while Florida has won the SEC East the past two years it’s due more to others floundering than the Gators rising to the top.
McElwain is 22-10 at Florida and never seems comfortable as head coach of the Gators. He’s got that Butch Jones twitch in that he’s always saying things to try and convince others he’s doing a good job – “we’ve won the SEC East the last two years!” – and always seems to be looking over his shoulder for the next critic.
Yes, he’s had to deal with a lot of adversity. Whenever he gets a quarterback in a bit of a groove, he loses him, to NCAA rules or to injury. And several players were suspended this year in a credit card fraud case that has drawn the interest of government investigators, draining his roster.
But overall, the team does not seem to play inspired under McElwain and you have to wonder how long it will be before some Gators fans send an extreme message to Athletic Scott Strickland by doing something such as as, say, setting up a GoFundMe account to help buy out the struggling coach’s contract.
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