Wherever he goes, it is the question on everyone’s mind.
The receivers? They’ll be OK. The defense? It will take care of itself. The running backs? The running backs will be fine.
But for Jim McElwain, the head coach at Florida, it starts with a simple enough question.
Who’s the quarterback?
McElwain isn’t saying, of course. He visited the sets of ESPN’s College Football, of SportsCenter and of The Colin Cowherd Show, and in each case he played the competition between Treon Harris and Will Grier close to the vest. If one is favored in their battle, McElwain isn’t going to give the answer in July.
“There are guys who maybe have great arms,” he said on College Football Live. “Or a great this or great that. It’s the guys who can move the offense down the field and make the people around him better. How do the guys rally around you during a game, a scrimmage, a practice? How does everyone else elevates around you.”
It is a quarterback university. This is the school where Steve Spurrier, Danny Wuerffel and Tim Tebow all won Heismans, and all are captured as statues outside the stadium. Rex Grossman finished second in the Heisman voting. Shane Matthews was fifth. Yes, there have been some quarterbacks.
But quarterback was one of the Gators’ biggest frustrations when Jeff Driskell – who has since transferred – played at the school. So the question is natural.
“I’m looking at the guy who can figure out what color jerseys we’re wearing and throw to the right jerseys,” McElwain said on the Cowherd Show.
The guys in the stands? They’re looking for big plays. For first downs. For touchdowns.
