Gus Malzahn for UCF seems so right. Not only is it the best addition to the current cycle of hiring college football coaches, it is the best hiring of the Group of Five, basically since we started calling it the Group of Five, about 10 years ago.
And it’s not even close.
That’s because Power Five coaches with championship pedigree with a winning percentage of 0.670 generally don’t fall out of the sky for UCF’s tastes. It’s been 20 years since FIU’s Butch Jones brought Miami back to relevance. Lane Kiffin (at FAU in 2017) comes to mind, but this is overkill. Kiffin went to the FAU because he needed the car wash in Alabama and Nick Saban’s tutelage to become a head coach again.
Malzahn beat the master three times. He also won a national championship as an offensive coordinator and played as a head coach.
How not to like it? At 55, he is at the peak of his coaching career and looked like a rejuvenated coach during his introductory press conference on Monday.
The best coaches in the Group of Five have no experience as the head coach of the Power Five: Billy Napier, Luke Fickell (a year as an interim in Ohio), Bill Clark, Bryan Harsin (now having replaced Malzahn at Auburn). UCF has just inherited the only active trainer who walks the Earth with that hat trick over Saban.
There is no disgrace going from the SEC to the AAC. Former UCF athletic director Danny White spent six years transforming UCF into a football powerhouse that won its own national championship and energized Orlando, Florida. We know what the Knights can be because we witness it.
Gus could have gone a year or two without working on TV and counting the money for Auburn’s purchase. But there is a reason why he barely breathed after his resignation. In his story, if Malzahn is not calling the moves, he is delegating the other person to call the moves before quickly taking charge of the moves.
If it works, Malzahn will probably leave in a few years, but everyone should know that. All parties involved enter this relationship with their eyes wide open. UCF’s new AD, Terry Mohajir, is familiar with the situation as he led the program with Malzahn as a coach at Arkansas State in 2012. Malzahn stayed one season, the first as a college coach, and Mohajir had to make a replacement. That replacement, Bryan Harsin, also lasted for a season. There will be every reason to believe that Malzahn can take a long time when the next important SEC or ACC job opens. Perhaps already in 2022.
That is good. We are all adults here.
“I really believe that we will be among the four finalists in a short period of time,” said Malzahn on Monday.
Note that Malzahn is not a losing coach. He just didn’t win enough for Auburn. Expectations are different, less maddening than SEC West.
Then again, this may also be just who Malzahn is for the rest of his career: an energetic offensive genius still at his peak chasing the New Year’s Six and College Football Playoff spots near Disney World. If both entities maintain their current relationship, think about the ceiling for UCF: the CFP is likely to expand when the current contract expires in five years.
“I thought for a long time that eight would be a better number [for the playoff]”Said Malzahn Monday.” There are some great ball games that go unnoticed. … The best teams in the Group of Five are right here. I gained experience playing UCF in a bowl game and taking a loss. I know that there is not much distance between the main teams of the Power Five, especially this one. ”
Gus may or may not be around, but that’s not the point. He has itchiness, and he has a built-in quarterback to win now at the talented Dillon Gabriel. (Let’s hope Malzahn keeps defensive coordinator Randy Shannon, by the way.)
If the worst thing you can say about Malzahn is that he can’t develop quarterbacks. Well, welcome to the transfer portal era. Malzahn is going to try to beat Alabama, LSU, Texas A&M, Florida and Georgia to face… Memphis and Cincinnati. You have to like his chances.
UCF has been the best AAC program since the conference launched in 2013. The American has been the best conference of the Group of Five since the start of the CFP in 2014. The state of Florida remains full of talent. Former Knights coach Scott Frost once told me that his research showed that one in 99 high school players in Florida signs a First Division scholarship. California and Texas are next with one in 400.
That’s where Malzahn fits in well, too. It will be a relief to wake up every day without having to read or hear what Alabama just did, 24/7/365. That is Harsin’s problem now. Note: A +
Remember when COVID-19 should be a mulligan year for coaches in trouble? Not exactly. Although the pandemic has probably reduced the volume of matches – just 15 in the off-season – it has not stopped some major programs from swallowing a lot of money. Texas, South Carolina and Auburn paid $ 42 million to buy the departed coaches.
The total purchase price for the nine coaches dismissed from the list below is more than $ 53 million. (Vanderbilt’s Derek Mason was the tenth coach fired, but the acquisition numbers are not available because he is a private institution.) That’s an average of $ 5.89 million. This is a consideration when making a change. The 15 changes now add up to 86 schools that have changed coaches at least once in the past four seasons (66%). Patience is not a virtue among sports directors.
See how we evaluate the rest of the signings as we enter the 2021 college football season.