Auburn Football: Firing Gus Malzahn would be major mistake

The rumor mill is churning and Auburn football is reportedly considering firing Gus Malzahn just a year removed from handing him a big contract extension.

More than any coach in the nation, Gus Malzahn teeters on the line of genius and madman; when it works, Malzahn is heralded as a football savant capable of scheming his way to wins over top ranked teams like Georgia and Alabama last season, earning an SEC West title and a $49 million contract extension in the process.

When it doesn’t work, Malzahn is considered a buffoon incapable of finding his way out of a revolving door as is teams crumble under the weight of expectations.

His shtick grows tiresome in the midst of mediocrity. His madness always seems to extend a step too far, and he constantly outsmarts himself. All the gimmicks look good when they work, but when they don’t the results can be repugnant and leave the play-caller looking foolish.

Take the Iron Bowl for example. The double pass that resulted in Ryan Davis hitting Malik Miller for a touchdown to bring the Tigers within three late in the second half was a stroke of genius.

Later, with Auburn trailing by 17 after a couple of haymakers from Tua Tagovailoa, Gus decided on a fake field goal that was predicated on his kicker making a five-star defensive back miss in space. The result was predictable.

Take also Malzahn’s frustrating decision to not be aggressive at the end of the half with two minutes to go and the football, seemingly content with a three-point deficit going into the locker room, which signaled to those watching that Auburn had no expectations of actually winning the game.

Malzahn made his bones as an aggressive coach, and yet becomes conservative in the most inopportune moments. He had nothing to lose in the Iron Bowl, but instead of cutting completely loose, Malzahn coached like someone who was just hoping to avoid a blowout, and yet that blowout inevitably came anyway.

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He certainly has his faults, and his inability to win with expectations has been frustrating for the faithful on the Plains. Malzahn’s Tigers only seem to be good when no one sees them coming, often falling apart when expectations are at their peak.

Following a No. 2 finish and a last second loss in the final BCS Championship Game in 2013, Auburn began 2014 ranked No. 6. They ended up going 4-4 in SEC play and 8-5 overall when all was said and done, finishing 22nd in the final AP poll.

Then of course there was this season, where the Tigers began 9th after grabbing the SEC West in 2017. A 7-5 finish has them out of the Top 25 altogether, and the heat that follows Malzahn like a shadow has crept back on him. The inability to string together successful seasons in a row has the fanbase groaning for change. A lack of player development, particularly at the QB position, has also latched onto Malzahn’s reputation as much as quirky play-calling.

Officials at Auburn have reportedly kicked the tires on retired Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops, who commented last year at the Touchdown Club of Atlanta that he was retired for good, but the coaching itch never truly goes away. That’s why Les Miles is back. That’s why Mack Brown is back. And that could be what’s driving Stoops to return to the sideline, despite his retirement being in no small part due to his father’s death on the football field while coaching at just 54 years old.

Delusions of grandeur are fueling Auburn’s desire to move on from a perfectly fine football coach. Malzahn is 52-27 in six seasons at Auburn, with a pair of SEC West titles and a runner-up finish to Florida State for the BCS crown in 2013.

Malzahn is the only sitting SEC coach who has bested Nick Saban, and he’s done it twice. Auburn has played in consecutive New Year’s Six bowl games, and although they lost both and have no shot at garnering a third straight berth, not many teams can boast even getting there.

Little brother syndrome has Auburn believing that they should have Alabama-like success. Seeing your in-state rivals consistently at the pinnacle of the college football world grows tiresome, particularly when they’re able to capture national titles in spite of losing to you, rendering an Iron Bowl victory mostly meaningless.

As hard as they try, Auburn will never be Alabama. Much like Michigan State will never be Michigan. The parallels between the Spartans and Tigers are particularly astute, with both teams living in the shadow of blue-blood programs, although Michigan State hasn’t had to watch their rival win title after title, which makes it more tolerable.

But coming off of a 10-win season, Michigan State labored to a 7-5 campaign much like Auburn, despite entering the season highly ranked, while also suffering a multi-score defeat to their bitter rivals across the state.

There are no calls for Dantonio’s head to be place on a pike in East Lansing because of it. Sparty adores their head coach who has led them to a couple conference titles and a playoff bid, despite not being able to get them completely over the hump.

Malzahn probably should have gotten out when he had the opportunity to do so on his own terms last season. The Arkansas job was open, and while that would have been considered a lateral move at best, it would have allowed him the chance to go back to his home state where expectations are much more mild. Winning 66 percent of your games in Fayetteville would have you praised as a deity; at Auburn, in the midst of the Alabama dynasty, it has Malzahn flirting with the unemployment line.

At some point or another, Auburn’s willingness to flirt with other candidates while they have a sitting coach is going to become an ugly trend, one that will potentially turn off candidates down the line who feel like there is no sense of job security on Toomer’s Corner.

Auburn’s trustees infamously met with Bobby Petrino on a tarmac following the 2003 season while Tommy Tuberville, a perfectly capable head coach in his own right, was still employed. That deal fell through, and Tuberville led the Tigers to an undefeated season in 2004.

It doesn’t help either that Athletic Director Allen Greene publicly stated earlier in the month that Malzahn was Auburn’s coach of the future, a vote of confidence that now appears hollow, more evidence of deceit among the administration that furthers a growing reputation.

The presence of Saban in Tuscaloosa has led Auburn to drastic measures with coaches twice already. They fired Tuberville, who won 68 percent of his games, following the 2008 season and his first Iron Bowl loss in seven years. They fired Gene Chizik, who won 63 percent of his games, just two years removed from leading Auburn to their first National Championship in over 50 years.

And now they’re flirting with letting go of Malzahn if they can strike an agreement with Stoops, who while extremely successful in Norman, won a single national championship all the way back in 2000, his second season at Oklahoma.

None of this is to mention how it fiscally doesn’t make sense, particularly with the amount of money that Stoops is alleged to be asking for — a Jimbo Fisher type offer. Fisher was signed to a fully guaranteed $75 million deal for 10 years at Texas A&M during the last coaching carousel.

So, along with Malzahn’s buyout of an estimated $32 million, Auburn would be committing over $100 million to make this coaching change. With the rapidly changing landscape of college football, where people are focusing more and more on salaries of coaches and the free labor given to them by the top athletes in the country, who are unable to even profit off of their own names – with schools constantly saying they don’t have the money to pay the players – committing a nine figure number to make this change now would be another ugly reminder of the exploitation of college athletes.

The grass isn’t always greener, and many teams have stupidly fired competent coaches in search of glory, only to find failure waiting for them on the other side.

The smart move would be to keep Malzahn, who with lowered expectations for next year, might just surprise and have the Tigers competitive in the SEC and on the national stage.

After all, Mazlahn is at his best when no one sees him coming.