Former Bobcat OC Still Blazing Offensive Trails

Tucked neatly into The Sporting News Daily’s list of college football’s top 10 offensive coordinators last week was a name familiar to Bobcat fans, Jim McElwain. By now, everyone knows that Jimmy Mac has found his way to fame as Nick Saban’s play-caller at Alabama, and by his next trip home to the Treasure State will likely be sporting a national championship ring.

After parting ways with MSU upon Cliff Hysell’s retirement after the 1999 season, and after some time pulling double shifts with the coffee klatches at Kagy Korner, McElwain landed with John L. Smith at Louisville. It was not an accident. To his ever-lasting credit, Hysell worked diligently to help each of his assistants find work in the business. McElwain followed the former Idaho coach, with whom Hysell’s Bobcats waged some legendary battles, to Michigan State. From there the Missoula native spent a year in Al Davis’ Oakland Raiders circus, migrated back into college football for a season at Fresno State, and was then lured to one of the game’s holy places, Tuscaloosa.

For the great things McElwain has accomplished since leaving MSU, it’s worth a look back at his time in Blue and Gold.

When McElwain arrived from Eastern Washington as Cliff Hysell’s offensive coordinator in the summer of 1995, the Bobcats were fresh off a season in which the MSU offense was last (8th) in the league in scoring, passing* yards, and total yards. The program had long since identified itself as a team that would get done whatever it got done on the ground first, but was only 5th in the Big Sky in that category.

*In fairness, it should be pointed out that MSU threw for 217.3 yards a game in the pass-happy Big Sky that season, good for last in the league but 32nd nationally. Yes, that’s when the Big Sky was the Big Sky.

The offensive numbers hadn’t been that bleak throughout the Hysell era, but it was close. In the 7-4 1993 season, MSU finished 6th in scoring offense and 7th in total offense in the Big Sky. And with little time to restructure the offense and no influence as to the players he recruited, McElwain’s first Bobcat offense struggled in similar fashion. In a campaign that featured significant in-season quarterback shuffling, the Bobcats finished 8th in the league in passing yards, total yards, and scoring.

You can see where this is going, of course, as easily as those paying attention 15 years ago could see which direction the MSU offense was headed. In spite of remaining at the bottom of the league rankings in most offensive categories, MSU threw for nearly 300 yards more scored 54 more points in 1996 than the year before, and with the quarterback position coalescing around Rob Compson and two springs in McElwain’s system MSU’s offense took off in 1997. The team threw for 2,430 yards, 8th-most in school history to that point and 6th-best in the Big Sky. MSU scored 227 points, slightly down from the season before but also 6th in the league.

The 1998 season brought more improvement, and proved to be the team’s offensive peak for the years between Dave Arnold’s aerial high-wire act of the 1980s and the Travis Lulay-era teams of the early 2000s. MSU threw for 2,639 yards that year, the 4th-highest total in school history to that point and the most by a Bobcat team not led by Kelly Bradley. Rob Compson was terrific, and the passing explosion led the Bobcats to 348, the most in the Big Sky and still the 3rd-best mark in school history. The Bobcats averaged 31.6 points a game, and for the only time in the last 30 yards led the Big Sky in scoring.

Read that again. Montana State led the Big Sky in scoring in 1998 for the first time in 20 years, and hasn’t done so since. That was an amazing accomplishment then, and stands as an even more amazing accomplishment now. In three full years, McElwain built the Big Sky’s most productive offense.

Of course, a lot of things went wrong in 1999, but after some wistful moments McElwain’s offensive brilliance burned through at each of his stops. More importantly, all who have had the pleasure of knowing and working with him recall and appreciate the humility and humor.