Auburn Football: Guz Malzahn proves leadership with no new COVID tests

It is an awfully tough season for the NCAA football BCS schedule, but at least Guz Malzahn has been able to keep his Auburn football players free of COVID-19 in recent days.

In the 2020-21 NCAA football season, leadership has a whole new mantra across the sports landscape. Now, the coaches that are able to keep their players from spreading the Coronavirus throughout the program have been lauded for their ability to keep outbreaks under control. Unfortunately, Auburn football lost an easy matchup with Mississippi Stat because of coaching incompetence.

Because let’s be real, they are going to happen. All it takes is one member of the college football team to contract the virus from being out and about and living life in Auburn. But it takes a disciplinarian with the ability to inspire to have his players buy into whatever quarantine rules he implements to ensure the schedule goes on as planned (or as close as possible).

Guz Malzahn has proven to be that guy.

After there was an outbreak last week, Malzahn preached patience and energy for Saturday’s game against the Tennessee Volunteers:

"“It’s kind of ‘next man up,'” Malzahn said. “Everybody has to be ready to go in this kind of climate. The big thing for us is we’re just excited we’re going to be able to play this week at this point. We’re ready to get back on the field.”"

Malzahn isn’t wrong. This season, across the board, was set to be a wild one. If there isn’t a ‘next man up’ mentality, then teams will pick on those coaches who didn’t stress being ready to backups.

Luckily, there’s this nugget from the Montgomery Advisor’s info on how results have gone in the past week:

"Malzahn said the Tigers haven’t reported a positive COVID-19 test since Wednesday, which indicates that the team’s outbreak (13 positive tests in all) is under control."

Leadership is curbing the spread of a highly infectious and many-times fatal disease, and while that hasn’t been the case for many supposed “leaders” across the country, Malzahn proved to be one for Auburn football this week.

Go Tigers!