If you're looking for sexy, Jim McElwain isn't your guy. If you're looking for splash, it's not happening here.
Now if you're looking for someone to fix the one thing that has gutted Florida's football program since Tim Tebow left Gainesville after the 2009 season, then McElwain might be the sexiest, splashiest move the Gators could have made.
This isn't about the right fit or the right man for the job or the right time to take a chance on a guy with three years' head coaching experience.
This was all about finding a coach who knows how to score points, and has proved it at the highest level of the game. The last time Florida saw McElwain, his Alabama offense hung 490 yards and 32 points on the nation's No. 1 defense in a rout of the No. 1 Gators in the SEC Championship Game.
That game, more than anything, was the beginning of the end for Florida's run at the top of college football. Urban Meyer resigned later that month, then returned for a failed follow-up season, and then left for good after 2010.
Since 2010, Florida's offense has been among the SEC's worst, its quarterbacks combining to throw 65 touchdown passes against 52 interceptions. In those five seasons, Florida used eight quarterbacks, and none had a rating higher than Treon Harris' 142.2 this season (national leader is Oregon's Marcus Mariota, 190.2).
Think about that: Harris, who looked utterly lost every time he dropped to throw, was the best quarterback this elite program had to offer in the past five years. It's shocking, really.
Now you know why Foley zeroed in on McElwain, a coach who made stars out of both Greg McElroy and AJ McCarron at Alabama — guys who weren't exactly huge recruits — before leaving for Colorado State and making a star out of Garrett Grayson.
When McElwain arrived at Fort Collins, Grayson was a sophomore backup trudging his way through the depth chart as a two-star recruit. Over the next three seasons, Grayson threw for 62 TDs and 20 INTs, including this fall's breakout season with 32 TDs, 6 INTs and 3,779 yards.
If you know absolutely nothing about McElwain, know this: He can coach quarterbacks and he can call plays. There hasn't been a head coach in Gainesville that could do that since Steve Spurrier breathed life into a stagnant program from the day he walked on campus in 1990.
Can he recruit? Jimbo Fisher didn't make his bones as a recruiter when he was coaching offenses for Nick Saban and Bobby Bowden. Now he's among the game's best.
Winning and a solid plan go a long way in the world of recruiting. When you have three offensive coordinators in four years — each with his own style and philosophy — you're not sexy and you're not splashy. You're just another team.
But if you're looking for someone to fix your broken offense, there's not a better guy in the game right now than McElwain.
That should be more than sexy.