Former Florida head coach Jim McElwain accepted an offer from Jim Harbaugh to become Michigan's offensive coordinator and WR coach last night, per multiple sources and reports. We've been able to confirm many of the details below, and have added several details from other respected media outlets, on how this affects Michigan's OC Tim Drevno and passing game coordinator/QB coach Pep Hamilton.
Rivals’ Chris Balas, 247Sports' Sam Webb, and several blogs have released various reports of this hiring over the last several days that piece together a full picture of how everything plays out as discussed below...
Here's the latest:
- Harbaugh interviewed at least 5 candidates to join the Michigan offensive staff as offensive coordinator
- The list of confirmed interviewees are: McElwain, Cam Cameron, former Giants HC Ben McAdoo, former Titans OC Terry Robiski - named as Buffalo Bills WR coach today, and John Morton - recently fired as Jets OC
- Tim Drevno will be 'promoted' to Associate Head Coach and 'demoted' to OL coach. Officially, it will a promotion Drevno, but in reality it is a 'management promotion' and a football demotion. Drevno will be focusing less on offensive gameplanning and more on the program as a whole - think of his as a 'head of operations' of a company where Jim Harbaugh is the CEO
- Pep Hamilton will lose his 'passing game coordinator' title and also lose his recently acquired 'WR coach' title and will be strictly QB coach for Michigan in 2018 and beyond (with 3 years remaining on his contract)
- Jay Harbaugh will remain as RB coach, but will be given a lot of guidance from 'analyst' Ed Warinner
- New 'analyst' Ed Warinner (former Ohio State OC) will be next in line for coaching role if Hamilton or Drevno take a new job this off-season or next. From what we've gathered, it is not out of the realm of possibilities that one or both or Drevno or Hamilton will continue to seek other opportunities this off-season. With the NCAA adding a 10th coach for each staff this season, there will be a longer than normal coaching carousel in college football that could open up a job for them to take at another school.
McElwain was the OC and QB Coach at Alabama under Saban for 4 seasons, 2008-11, 2 of which resulted in National Championships for the Tide (2009, 2011). At Alabama, he coached 2009 Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram, as well as NFL All-Pro WR Julio Jones. He is widely credited for the development of QB A.J. McCarron at Alabama, who would win a title under McElwain in 2011, repeated in 2012, and get withing a kick-six from Auburn from a potential 3-peat of National Titles as Alabama's QB. McElwain took the head coaching job at Colorado State from 2012-14, going 22-16 in 3 seasons. His team went 10-3 in 2014 before taking the head job at Florida from 2015-17, which included SEC East Championships in 2015 and 2016, going 10-3, and 10-4 respectively.
McElwain was fired at Florida (reported as 'mutually parting ways') as rumors were swirling that he lied to Florida officials and media about receiving death threats.
Harbaugh's defenses had tremendous success against McElwain and his Florida teams, beating the Gators in the January 1, 2016 Citrus Bowl 41-7, and in 2017's season opener 33-17 in Dallas. In the 2017 game, Florida only scored 3 points on offense (10 total in 2 games vs Harbaugh). Known as an offensive coach, McElwain's Florida offenses could only muster 273 and 192 yards of offense in 2 blowout losses against Harbaugh and Michigan. We will report MORE on this story on the Michigan Football Report show on Thursday - click to be alerted to watch.
Outside of his stints at Alabama and Florida, McElwain grew up in Missoula, Montana, and played quarterback at Eastern Washington, where he began his coaching career as a graduate assistant in 1985. He spent time at Montana State (1995-99), Louisville (2000-02), Michigan State (2003-05), the NFL's Oakland Raiders (2006) and Fresno State (2007). At Fresno State, his offense averaged 419.5 yards and 32.9 points a game, which got Saban's attention.
This article was written by James Yoder (Twitter @JamesTYoder) - LIKE Michigan Football by Chat Sports for wall-to-wall-to-wall-to-wall coverage of Michigan football news, rumors and recruiting coverage.
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