- Jun 13, 2014
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All these losers wanna pile on now. Sec country celebrated macs eastern division championships until the day he got fired.Here's an actual story on this....
Former Gators player on conditioning program under Jim McElwain: ‘It was a joke’
https://www.seccountry.com/florida/...ning-program-under-jim-mcelwain-it-was-a-joke
Years from now, it will be to everyone’s amazement that Florida was able to win two SEC East division titles under Jim McElwain, whose tenure in Gainesville went from good to extremely bad in a hurry.
One problem that the Gators program suffered from during McElwain’s three years in charge was the strength and conditioning program led by Mike Kent, according to one former Florida player.
“It was a joke. I love Mike Kent to death, one of the best people I have ever met,” the player told InsideTheGators.com. “Great guy, but it was a joke.”
Those issues didn’t seriously become apparent until the 2017 season, when the Gators struggled to a 4-7 record and McElwain was dismissed after making claims of death threats that he could never prove actually happened. With the two SEC East titles in his first two seasons, McElwain seemed like he was a good fit for the program despite the lack of offense, but the underlying issues would come back to haunt the coach and the team.
“Our program wasn’t a serious off-season program,” the player said. “There was no accountability. If you missed a workout, there was no you had to make it up or get up and run the next morning. If you missed a workout, you just missed it. They couldn’t enforce anything, or they wouldn’t, so they started making some things optional. Once you make it optional, what do you think is going to happen? Guys are going to take the option of not showing up.”
This is not the first time that the weakness of the strength and conditioning program under McElwain has been brought to the forefront, as former Gators defensive end Taven Bryan commented on the look of the team now that they are under Nick Savage, who joined new coach Dan Mullen’s staff as the strength coach.
“Savage is an unreal weight coach,” Savage said. “I just want to say that. Just how he changes their bodies. We looked like the Pillsbury Doughboys, and now they’re like swole.”