Commentary No coach deserves to receive death threats
Until Monday you seemingly had to live in the Tennessee Valley or College Station, Texas — or maybe Auburn, Ala. — to experience serious venom and vitriol spewing from certain college football fans regarding the coaches of their favorite schools.
Yet according to third-year Florida coach Jim McElwain, that anger/frustration/paranoia/childishness now extends to at least some small portion of Gators Nation.
“There’s a lot of hate in this world, and a lot of anger,” McElwain said. “And yet it’s freedom to show it. The hard part is obviously when the threats (are) against your own players, the death threats to your families, the ill will that’s brought upon out there.”
He also added — though he curiously failed to provide any further details to either the Florida media or the school’s own administrators, who just as curiously sent out a later release that specifically said of McElwain’s statement: “He offered no additional details” — that those threats are a “testament to what’s going on out there nationally.”
And to think that the first announcement of the teams currently in position to make the college football playoff is still six days from today, somewhat appropriately scheduled for Halloween. Talk about your tricks and treats for programs such as Notre Dame, Ohio State, Clemson, Washington State and Washington — high-level teams that already have suffered one loss this season.
But you wonder how much of this ugliness is even the tiniest bit justified, as well as how much of it is a dangerous and disturbing sign that fan bases everywhere have reached a level of unrealistic expectations that takes all fun out of the chase by November for anyone no longer in the playoff hunt.
Beyond that, does this not scream of a need to expand the format to eight schools, though moving it beyond that would also lessen the importance of the regular season, which is something no college football fan should want, regardless of whether or not his or her favorite team earns a CFP invitation?
Let’s be clear. There is no justification at any time for anyone to make a death threat on another human being unless, perhaps, its Korea’s repugnant “Rocket Man”: Kim Jong Un. As long as McElwain can provide proof of such threats, or at least not be proven to have lied about them, no one should make light of them. Instead, anyone to whom those threats can be traced needs a visit from the long arm of the law as soon as possible.
But in a broader sense, we all need to rethink what we’re willing to accept as fans, because not everyone can win. Especially in college football, where only four teams advance to the playoff — or three if you consider that No. 1 Alabama’s the only school to have been invited to all of the first three playoffs and currently seems all but guaranteed to make it four in a row this season.
That doesn’t mean Florida fans shouldn’t normally expect more than a 3-3 record from someone making nearly $4.5 million a year to coach a program with a ridiculous number of advantages over the vast majority of 130 schools who play in the Football Bowl Subdivision.
And while injuries certainly have hurt the Gators, season-long suspensions (to this point, anyway) to nine key players over the illegal use of a university credit card aren’t due to bad luck, but rather very bad behavior. If the fans want to blame their coaches for recruiting those players, fine, but one doubts anyone was questioning those signings when they came on board.
It isn’t just Florida, of course. Early in the season, as Texas A&M again struggled under Kevin Sumlin — who’s earning $5 million a year — he received racist hate mail, which was posted on social media by his wife.
Though Tennessee’s Butch Jones hasn’t reported any death threats, he has complained of comments being made to his wife and children about his future. Auburn coach Gus Malzahn is said to be similarly under fire from War Eagle Nation.
One thought about Auburn: While everyone everywhere seems to think that beating Alabama is next to impossible, Malzahn has whipped Nick Saban’s Tiders twice — once as an assistant and once as a head coach in 2013. Moreover, a close look at a couple of comparative scores to date would seem to indicate that Bama’s visit to Auburn on Nov. 26 could provide a surprise or two.
Though the Tigers ended up beating Ole Miss by only 44-23 while the Tide thumped the Rebs 66-3, both AU and UA led Mississippi by 35-3 at halftime.
As for Arkansas, Bama won 41-9 while Auburn prevailed 52-20, but the Tigers won on the road. Does it mean Auburn — which already has lost at Clemson and LSU — should make the CFP? Not right now. But it also means that Malzahn’s team has much more than a remote chance to defeat Bama for a third time in eight years, which would be one more time than any single team has beaten him in the 10-plus seasons he’s coached the Tide.
All that will shake out later, of course. For now, fans everywhere, but especially in the SEC, need to take a chill pill regarding their football coaches.
“At the end of the day, you’ve got to win,” McElwain said last week.
But win or lose, you should never have to deal with death threats or racism. It’s still a game, no matter what the men who coach it are paid for their services.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com