The Florida Gators will take on East Carolina in the 2015 Birmingham Bowl at Legion Field Saturday afternoon, but if newly-minted head coach Jim McElwain gets his way, the program will be back to playing for much larger stakes in future years.
UF signed McElwain away from Colorado State in the hopes that the offensive-minded guru could lead the Gators back to SEC prominence after stagnating in mediocrity under previous head coach Will Muschamp. McElwain won't be on the sidelines for Saturday's action, but he will be in the stands observing his future players intently. Reports are that the team's players are treating the Bowl appearance as a "tryout" for their new coach.
Birmingham Bowl a "Tryout" For Gators Players
Despite his teams' struggles through these past few years, one thing Muschamp was rightly known for was coaching up his defenses. That defense will get quite the challenge from the ECU Pirates, who ranked fifth in the nation this season with over 530 yards of total offense per game. Their air attack is especially lethal; senior QB Shane Carden threw 28 touchdown passes, and his 4,309 yards is the second-most of any QB in 2014.
The Pirates are 8-4, but don't think they're just a mid-major who beat up on cupcakes. They hung a combined 98 points in back-to-back wins against Virginia Tech and North Carolina in September.
The McElwain Era Begins in Florida With a Lot of Work Left to Be Done
The Gators will be playing with starting quarterback Treon Harris. Harris had been pulled over by police this week and slapped with a misdemeanor charge for allegedly operating a motor vehicle without a valid license. Cops also found trace amounts of marijuana in the car, but since it did not belong to Harris he avoided charges of possession. The incident led many to predict Harris would miss the Bowl, but UF officials decided to handle the incident internally without a suspension.
This is only the second time in history Florida and East Carolina have faced each other. The Gators won their previous meeting 24-17, 33 years earlier.
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