Florida Gators

Jim McElwain On Florida Gators Football: Our Team Will Be Ready

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

foxsports

The loss to the Florida State Seminoles was devastating, but Jim McElwain plans to have the Florida Gators ready for the Alabama Crimson Tide.

The Florida Gators football team sustained a loss that can only rationally be described as traumatic. For the fourth consecutive season, the Gators were unable to defeat the Florida State Seminoles.

Though the loss, as well as the accumulation of injuries, have been overwhelming, head coach Jim McElwain still believes his team will be ready for the SEC Championship Game.

Despite losing to Florida State, the Gators will have a chance to win the 2016 SEC Championship. Florida clinched the SEC East with a massive victory against the LSU Tigers in Baton Rouge and will now play the Alabama Crimson Tide in Atlanta.

According to Ryan Young of SEC Country, McElwain was concerned about his team, but believes they will be ready for the SEC Championship Game against Alabama.

“Yeah, I don’t know, we’ll get home about 3 in the morning probably. I don’t know whether they’ll come back or not. It’s going to be a heck of a test,” McElwain said.

That wasn’t the most encouraging of responses, but McElwain clarified his comments with another statement.

“Don’t you think it would? I would say it would. Yeah, I’m concerned,” he started, sending a piercing glare toward the reporter, his words amplifying in intensity. “These guys have been through a ton now. And they played their tails off today, and it hurts. But you know as a competitor, you tear off the rearview mirror and you go forward. Our team will be ready.”

McElwain is one of the most emotionally invested coaches in the country.

McElwain and the Gators have an unenvious task ahead of them. The next team on the schedule, Alabama, is 12-0 with an average margin of victory of 28.0 points per game during the 2016 season.

A win over the Crimson Tide wouldn’t just give the injury-depleted Gators the SEC Championship; it’d be one of the greatest upsets of all-time.

Anything is possible come the SEC Championship Game, but this will be a war on every snap. Florida must play the best defense imaginable while simultaneously finding the offensive rhythm that it’s lacked since Luke Del Rio went down.

The question is: can the Gators do the unthinkable and pull one out in Atlanta?

If you ask McElwain, his team will be ready.