Big task in store for McElwain

Jim McElwain was a key member of the dynamite and demolition crew that caused the downfall of the Florida Gators football powerhouse. Now he has been put in charge of repairing what he once wrecked.

McElwain, hired from Colorado State on Thursday as the new coach of the Gators, was the offensive coordinator under coach Nick Saban at Alabama in 2009 when the Crimson Tide crushed coach Urban Meyer, quarterback Tim Tebow and the undefeated Gators 32-13 in the Southeastern Conference championship game. McElwain’s Alabama offense rolled up 490 yards that day and stampeded a UF defense that was ranked No. 4 in the nation.

Tebow – in his final collegiate season – cried after the game.

And Meyer quit.

And Florida football hasn’t been the same since.

After enduring four boring, snoring years under offensively challenged former coach Will Muschamp, UF athletic director Jeremy Foley made it clear when Muschamp was fired a few weeks ago that the new coach must bring some offensive flair and excitement back to Gainesville.

Unfortunately in today’s off-the-cuff Twitterverse, media and fans are already making instantaneous judgments and running Internet polls on whether McElwain is a good hire or a bad one. There are some who believe Foley should have tried to land a sexier, splashier name from a bigger, better program.

We know McElwain has been a good offensive coordinator at the most prestigious program in college football. We also know he’s been a good head coach at a much lesser program. But what we don’t know is if he can be what Gator Nation demands: a great head coach at a major program in the toughest conference in college football.

With all due respect to all of you fans and all of us media members, it doesn’t matter today what you or I think of this hire. All that matters is whether Jim McElwain can win and win big at the University of Florida.

Everything else is just noise in the system.

He once made Tim Tebow cry, but can he make Gator Nation smile once again?