GAINESVILLE, Fla. – For a guy caught in the midst of a recruiting maelstrom, Jim McElwain looked quite relaxed Thursday morning.

The eternally sockless new football coach of the Florida Gators drank coffee from a Styrofoam cup and talked college basketball – “I’m a frustrated basketball player,” he said, reminiscing about his youth in Montana, when he had a key to the high school gym and spent countless hours there shooting hoops.

If he was stressed over the National Letter of Intent melodrama roaring outside his office, McElwain artfully concealed it.

View photos UF coach Jim McElwain isn't intimidated by the task at hand. (Getty) More

Wednesday morning, No. 1 national recruit Byron Cowart committed to Auburn over the Gators on national TV. Then he didn’t send in his Letter of Intent, sparking several hours of confusion and speculation and general hysteria. Finally, by late afternoon, Cowart got the letter to Auburn. Florida had come in second.

Thursday it was five-star defensive end CeCe Jefferson’s turn to take a ride on the recruiting crazy train. He committed to Florida on Wednesday but a signed letter never followed. The athletic director at Jefferson’s high school described the delay to Yahoo Sports as “a family situation,” and the most popular explanation of the situation was that the player’s father, Leo, would not sign the letter. Leo Jefferson later told Rivals.com’s Mike Farrell that it was his son who was having doubts about the Gators, not him – although the dad went on to fire off several rounds of criticism at McElwain and his staff and said the biggest holdup was the just-announced news that defensive line coach Terrell Williams was leaving Florida. (That assertion about the coaching change being a factor was widely challenged as a convenient excuse.)

Against that tumultuous backdrop, Jim McElwain placidly quoted British economist John Maynard Keynes while discussing the big-picture undertaking of rebuilding a dilapidated blueblood.

“The difficulty lies not in the new ideas,” McElwain said, “but in escaping the old ones.”

There aren’t many football coaches who will go Keynesian in an interview, but Mac went there. Beneath the surface his mind might have been on CeCe Jefferson, but the questions were about a job that is bigger than one player in one recruiting class.

McElwain’s new gig comes with a six-year contract for a reason – there is more modernizing to do at Florida than you might expect.

“Reworking the infrastructure is where we’re at right now,” McElwain said. “We fell behind a little bit, facility-wise. Not that they aren’t nice, but they’re tired.”

What was state of the art in the Spurrier Era now is overdue for an update. The bells and whistles that help sway recruits may carry the whiff of Roman Empire excess, but if everyone else in the Southeastern Conference has them and you don’t, guess who loses out?

One of Florida’s strengths also has been something of a weakness – administrative continuity. Stability and school loyalty flow from athletic director Jeremy Foley, who has been in charge since 1992, throughout the athletic department. But it took the failed Will Muschamp Era to shake some elements of Gator Nation out of its stasis, realizing that doing things the same way they’ve always been done eventually is a ticket to obsolescence.

Thus, construction on Florida’s first indoor practice facility is underway. And there are plans to modernize some of the dorms athletes live in. McElwain wants to change the floor plan of the football offices, too, making them more inviting for players to drop by and visit the coaching staff.

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