Auburn football deemed a lost program without fired ex-head coach
Auburn football was deemed a lost program without fired ex-head coach Gus Malzahn according to USA Today’s Blake Toppmeyer — who claimed that Malzahn is just fine without the Tigers as his employer at UCF.
“Auburn paid a $21.5 million buyout to fire a coach who achieved eight consecutive winning seasons, beat Nick Saban three times and went 6-4 against an SEC-only schedule in the midst of the worst pandemic our nation experienced in a century,” Toppmeyer prefaced before saying, “I thought Auburn’s 2020 decision to fire Gus Malzahn was foolish then. The past three seasons have shown that Malzahn is fine without Auburn, but the Tigers are lost without Malzahn.”
After a brutal five-game losing streak from Week 4 to Week 9 of the 2023 season, Malzahn has mostly righted the ship since; beating Cincinnati (28-26) and really beating Oklahoma State (45-3) before losing 24-23 to Texas Tech in Week 12. It’s looking like he will stick in Orlando as the Knights continue to adjust to Big 12 play, and he most certainly won’t be an available option at offensive coordinator.
Especially since momentum has left the Plains with November 18’s 21-point beatdown at the hands of New Mexico State.
Analyst: Auburn football will succeed more under Hugh Freeze than Bryan Harsin, but succeed less under Freeze than Gus Malzahn
Toppmeyer predicted that Auburn wouldn’t be as lost under Freeze as under Bryan Harsin, who never put together a three-game winning streak in SEC play on the Plains. He also predicted that the Freeze era wouldn’t match Malzahn’s tenure in East Central Alabama.
“Disaster doesn’t even begin to describe the Bryan Harsin era,” Toppmeyer prefaced before saying, “My early read on the Hugh Freeze era: He’ll succeed more than Harsin, but not as much as Malzahn, who won 66% of his games at AU.”
Certainly, the Malzahn era was underappreciated. Freeze will face more of the SEC than Malzahn had to, and that could lead to far less wins.
But if Freeze can do the one thing Malzahn couldn’t while leading the charge, win a meaningful bowl game, perhaps even a championship down the line, the current Tigers head coach’s time at the helm of Auburn football will just mean more than the fired ex-HC’s.