Former Auburn football coach Gus Malzahn will be the next UCF coach, sources told ESPN.
A deal is being finalized and an announcement from UCF may come on Monday. Malzahn emerged on Sunday as the top UCF candidate. Yahoo first reported the hiring.
Malzahn, 55, was fired on December 13, after eight seasons at Auburn. He was 68-35 overall and 39-27 in the SEC game. Malzahn took the Tigers to the national championship game in their first season in 2013. They won 10 games and made an appearance in the SEC championship in 2017, but were only 14-12 against opponents of the SEC in the next three seasons.
Malzahn replaces Josh Heupel at UCF. Heupel left last month to work as a head coach in Tennessee.
Malzahn signed a $ 49 million contract for seven years after the 2017 season and owed Auburn a $ 21.7 million acquisition when he was fired in December. Malzahn had just 8-17 against SEC rivals Alabama, Georgia and LSU, but he was also one of the few coaches in college football to succeed against Nick Saban in Alabama. Since the start of the 2013 season, Saban is 65-6 against SEC opponents, and three of those defeats have been for Malzahn.
The paths of UCF’s new athletic director, Terry Mohajir and Malzahn, crossed briefly in Arkansas. Three months after being named athletic director for the State of Arkansas in 2012, Mohajir had to find a replacement for Malzahn when he left for Auburn.
Kent State coach Sean Lewis was also among those nominated for the UCF position, according to sources.
ESPN’s Chris Low and Adam Rittenberg contributed to this report