Gus Malzahn Retires Effective Immediately

[alabama mike1]

I wish him well in retirement.

 

[Saban4Ever]

All of our September opponents will have a new OC. Our defense and coaches need to be ready!

 

[CB4]

Vested in FL retirement system?

Don’t think so. I think you have to have 8 years in Florida. I think he had four years at UCF and one year at

 

[dtgreg]

Don’t think so. I think you have to have 8 years in Florida. I think he had four years at UCF and one year at

Maybe he's working the Tuberville plan? Living in FL while he worked in Alabama?

 

[davefrat]

I never really had strong feelings about him one way or the other.

Best of luck in retirement.

 

[Joefus]

Would bet rent money he was given the option to retire or be fired. No one wants to end their career with two firings in two years

 

[selmaborntidefan]

I liked the guy's enthusiasm for the game, but he was never half as good as folks wanted to pretend.

He was brought to Arkansas so they could land Mitch Mustain - no other reason - and wound up the OC of the year by "Rivals." He smartly bolted from Houston the Nutt to Tulsa and then got his biggest break when Auburn's head coaching search somehow......SOMEHOW......landed on 5-19 Gene Chizik of Iowa State, probably the worst candidate they interviewed that cycle.

200K and a championship later, Gus was a legend. But he wasn't "that" good, he hung around for 2011 and the same Auburn team that easily would have been about 7-6 without Cam Newton was (wait for it) 8-5 and dropped from #4 overall in team offense to #70. Funny how he got credit for when they were good on offense but no blame when they were bad.

Gus might be the Lane Kiffin Lite of CFB as he made the smart decision to get the hell out of town after his powerhouse offense didn't score a single point against the 2011 Alabama defense. Let Chizik burn down his own village, which he did, and let Gus come back and save it, which he did.

Excluding his first-year "wow, look at us!" Gus was 32-26 in the SEC, which (for context) is basically the same six games over .500 that Jimbo Fisher managed at aTm (27-21) and slightly better than the peak of Mark Stoops at UK (25-25), who had 1/10 the resources Gus had. In all honesty, he had one stellar season (2013), two really good ones (2017, 2019) and mediocrity every other year.


His entire offense was based upon running the game so fast that even the officials couldn't keep up, and it's no accident that the moment they added an 8th official, his team pretty much was average at best. (It's like the Michigan fans nowadays who want to insist that Connor Stallions had nothing to do with them winning.......funny, they stunk before he was spying and they've stunk afterwards).


My favorite was when Gus insisted there was no evidence that running more plays led to more injuries, as if your odds of injury are the same just standing around as they are actually playing football. But then I saw several of his players suddenly suffer serious injuries during huddles and now I understand he was right.

 

[Slowpoke Catracho]

I read over on Warchant that his Mom is sick and he retired to spend more time with her and his family.

 

[LeBron47]

Goodbye Hughie we hardly knew thee… it seems like old times…

RTR!!!