It was hard to spend much time following college football online Saturday without coming across University of Florida coach Jim McElwain -- specifically, McElwain laying into one of his young players with thermonuclear rage.
Now McElwain says he "regrets" the tantrum that became an Internet spectacle.
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McElwain unloaded on junior running back Kelvin Taylor late in Florida's struggle of a win over lowly East Carolina. Taylor scored a crucial touchdown, then made a throat-slashing gesture in celebration, which drew an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.
Then TV cameras caught, well, this:
Florida player tweets he isn't upset after Jim McElwain's sideline tirade. http://t.co/WEhR8jjvqApic.twitter.com/S6tABU0u1L— SB✯Nation CFB (@SBNationCFB) September 13, 2015
Soon after, another video -- apparently shot from the Florida sideline -- captured audio of the coach going ballistic:
Damn Mac went off. pic.twitter.com/VrOGX8vxJC— Anthony. (@StrikeTwiceTB) September 13, 2015
Some argued McElwain's tirade crossed the line of decency for the college game, where players are not paid and many are still teenagers. Others saw his freakout as just a normal part of coaching and playing in big-time college athletics. Either way, it was an online sensation.
Among the unimpressed: McElwain's 94-year old mother.
“Absolutely, I do [regret it],” McElwain said Monday, according to The Gainesville Sun. “I’m by no means perfect and I do know our players know how much I care about them.
“I definitely did [learn from it]. I’m pretty passionate about what we do. There’s no doubt about it. I’m not proud about it and neither is my mother … 94 years old and I got an earful from her too. Rightfully so.”
Taylor, for his part, posted a tweet Sunday morning saying he had no problem with his coach's outburst.
I love coach Mac!!! He's going make me a better person Got nothing , but respect for him! #GatorNation — KT21 (@Kelvintaylor21) September 13, 2015
Taylor could perhaps have blamed genetics for his unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. He's the son of former Florida and Jacksonville Jaguars star running back Fred Taylor, who was fined $10,000 by the NFL for making the same throat-slash gesture in 2002.
“I thought it was a little of an overreaction, but I do understand coaching," Fred Taylor said in a radio interview relayed by the Sun. "[My son] got caught up in a celebration that his old man used to do. I throat-slashed many times. I’ve even gotten fined for it. But he understands that he made, as coach called it, a selfish act.”