Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
McElwain respects Saban but believes Tide not unbeatable
GAINESVILLE — UF coach Jim McElwain stood on the cusp of a burgeoning dynasty in 2008 at Alabama.
Neither McElwain nor anyone else fully realized what coach Nick Saban was building, but something special was in the air.
Nine years later, Saban’s empire towers over the SEC and the landscape of college football. McElwain’s SEC East champion Gators (8-3) are the latest team to be stuck playing for second place.
The SEC title game today is a textbook David versus Goliath matchup and presumably the next step in Saban’s quest to tie Bear Bryant’s record of six national titles.
McElwain was Saban’s offensive coordinator during Saban’s first of four title wins at Alabama, in 2009, and marvels at the Crimson Tide’s rise and sustained excellence under the man he still calls “Coach.”
“What it’s done for that university and that brand since Coach has been there has been unbelievable,” McElwain said Friday.
Top-ranked Alabama is on a historic run during a season that might ultimately rank as the 65-year-old Saban’s best yet.
The Crimson Tide have won 24 consecutive games, the third-longest streak in SEC history. It includes 12 wins this season with 18-year-old Jalen Hurts at quarterback and a host of veterans who have not become complacent in the face of success.
“The guy coached me and I’m still in awe of how consistent he can keep being,” said former LSU All-American Marcus Spears, who played on Saban’s 2003 national title team. “When you look at this roster, all of these players are accomplished, all of these players are national champions, except for a few incoming freshmen. And he’s playing with a true freshman quarterback.
“In order to get this team back to where they are right now, and undefeated, to me is his best coaching job.”
McElwain arrived at Alabama in
2008 to become offensive coordinator during Saban’s second season in Tuscaloosa. McElwain watched Saban implement an organization where he was involved in every detail and demanded 100 percent commitment from everyone involved.
“The one thing that’s really unique, there is the overall commitment of the people around Coach Saban that has allowed him to build the organization, build the infrastructure, build the things in total support in him to be able to go out and be successful,” McElwain said. “That commitment is something that is like no other. That’s one thing he was ahead of his time [in] as far as making sure everybody was aligned.
“It was a fascinating working experience.”
Saban’s approach to recruiting has yielded results as impressive as anything his teams have done on the field. Alabama has signed the No. 1 class for six consecutive seasons, and 247Sports.com, a popular recruiting website, ranks his 2017 class No. 1, too.
Saban and his staff then find the best way to deploy those players once they arrive on campus.
In 2014, Blake Sims, a former tailback, led Alabama to the SEC title. The star of the 2016 team is 291-pound defensive tackle Jonathan Allen, who arrived as a 250-pound linebacker.
“They get a lot of credit for their recruiting classes, but they don’t get the credit for how they develop those kids,” former UF quarterback Tim Tebow said. “Yeah, they come in pretty freakish. But they find a way to definitely plug them in.”
In 2008, Tebow became the last quarterback to beat Alabama in the SEC title game. But the Tide won four of the next seven and are 24-point favorites to beat the Gators today en route to another one.
Saban has little use for past accomplishments or outside expectations.
“I think we always try to look forward and players need to know they’re only as good as their last play,” he said. “Every player is getting evaluated on what he does next. Complacency is a blatant disregard for doing things correctly, and that’s something that we try not to allow to happen because I don’t think that helps people be successful.”
Saban’s winning formula has placed him in the pantheon of elite college football coaches. It also has made Alabama a constant factor at the end of every SEC season.
The Gators now must face Saban’s program at the height of its powers. Yet McElwain is not counting out Florida, even if everyone else already has.
“It’s not unbeatable at all,” McElwain said of Saban’s Tide. “I mean, no. Last time I checked, I think we’re a pretty good football team.”
But even if somehow, some way, McElwain’s Gators were to pull off the upset of the century today, Saban will be able to assume some of the credit.
“We’re a long ways from getting where we’re going to be, but you know what, we probably got here a lot quicker than a lot of people maybe even thought,” McElwain said. “I can attribute that to a lot of the things that I was able to learn from Coach along the way.”