It’s a make or break season for Gus Malzahn and Auburn football in 2019, and a loaded schedule might be difficult to navigate.
Auburn football head coach Gus Malzahn enters the 2019 season squarely on the hot seat. The administration flirted with making a coaching change after last season’s disappointing 7-5 regular season, but instead agreed with Malzahn on a reduced buyout for him to retain his post on the Plains. Basically, that reduced buyout makes it a lot easier for Auburn to fire Malzahn after next season if things go south.
Malzahn has taken back play-calling duties, bringing in 28-year-old offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham from Memphis to assist, but Malzahn will have the final say. The Tigers’ offense never looked better than it did in the Music City Bowl when Malzahn took over as play-caller. They dropped 56 points on Purdue in the first half of that game, a bowl record, and rolled to an easy victory.
That was aided by an excellent performance from Jarrett Stidham, though, and he’s now moved on to the NFL after getting selected by the Patriots in the fourth round of the draft. Finding a suitable replacement for Stidham will be the biggest storyline over the summer for Auburn, and it might be the difference between SEC West contention and a fight for bowl eligibility.
What started as a four-team race appears to have whittled down to two, with redshirt freshman Joey Gatewood (Auburn’s newest Cam Newton impersonator) and 5-star true freshman Bo Nix taking the majority of the first team snaps in the spring game.
Malzahn will have no other choice than to entrust his offense to an inexperienced player, and he’ll need to maximize the production out of that position in order for Auburn to find success in 2019.
Even if Auburn is improved next season, it might not translate to more wins, which is the only gauge fans and the shot-callers care about when assessing Malzahn’s future. Auburn’s 2019 schedule is loaded, and they could see a repeat of last season’s record despite taking forward strides.
Auburn opens the season in Arlington against an Oregon team that might well be the Pac-12 favorite, draws Florida and Georgia from the East, and faces SEC West road games at Texas A&M and LSU. Such is the life of playing in college football’s toughest conference.
It’s also just an outright strange schedule. Auburn’s final road game of the season happens on October 26. It doesn’t play a single road game in November. It also doesn’t play a single home game in October. Weird.
Let’s take a look at Auburn’s 2019 schedule game-by-game, and make some early predictions on how these contests might turn out.