Alabama Hires an OC (and it wasn’t Michael Scott-Dammit!)

After much speculation it was made official this morning. Alabama has hired Jim McElwain, most recently of Fresno State, as the Offensive Coordinator.

The talk can now begin as to how great he is going to be or how he’ll never cut it in this conference. Talk amongst yourselves.

I was personally excited about having Michael Scott in town after hearing about UA’s jet in Scranton but I guess it wasn’t meant to be.

Michael Scott to be New Alabama OC

Color me stoked. It seems that the boys over at Roll Bama Roll have been tracking planes today. Their conclusion is that John McNulty, the Offensive Coordinator at Rutgers, is from Scranton and since the University’s plane was in Scranton today that McNulty is at least interviewing. I’m not buying it though; if your gonna go after someone you might as well get the best. The best in Scranton, without question, would be Michael Scott.

There is no doubt he would be a great fit. His management skills are unsurpassed and his abilty to relate to the kids is unquestioned.

My only question would be: What kind of buyout does Dunder Mifflin have?

*just to be clear – Michael Scott is a fictional character and will not be the next offensive coordinator at the University of Alabama. So don’t bother telling me his scheme doesn’t fit with our players.

Hunt for the OC

No, we aren’t talking about the defunct TV drama, we’re talking about the new offensive coordinator. It has been hard to keep up with developments on this since Major Applewhite “heard Mama call,” but here is a short list of emotional responses for what little information has come this way:

1. Major is leaving; big, recognizable name but very “meh” results
2. Norm Chow; OMG! That would be awesome, but would an Asian be able to thrive in this community in any role other than that of professor- kinda doubt it.
3. Scott Loeffler; Michagan’s offense has not been what you would call impressive (unless you count the bowl victory over Florida, but the Gators made a few people look good)
4. Chris Hatcher: (HT: RollBamaRoll) Can’t find that much out about Hatcher. He has only been coach at GSU one season, following up the short tenure of BrianVanGorder. Instead of the highlight film that was certain to be on YouTube, a very quick search only yielded this nugget:

So maybe we don’t know what his offense would look like but we do know that college kids were confident enough in him that they would shotgun beers before home games. So we would have that going for us. Which is nice.

At this point the recruiting class is pretty much set. There is no reason to believe that whomever was hired would change the outlook of that group. We don’t have to worry about the theatrics that Auburn used in the Peach Bowl to lure recruits (there is just no way to make me believe Tuberville is not going to rely on a power running game). It would just be nice to get the hire over with so that Alabama fans can begin building him up and fans of other SEC schools can tell us how he is not going to improve our dismal offense.