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Is UCF the right fit for Gus Malzahn?
Late Sunday night, reports began to surface of former Auburn football head coach Gus Malzahn being linked to the head coaching job at UCF. Considering it is February and most staff shakeups have already occurred, this comes at a surprising time in the college football timeline.
The latest major shakeup in college football came at Tennessee with the firing of Jeremy Pruitt, which is why the UCF job opened this late in the game. The typical coaching carousel was pushed back by about a month because the regular season ended in December rather than November. With all that being said, this isn’t out of the ordinary when you take into consideration the timeline of an unusual year in college football.
Over the last four seasons, UCF is 41-8 overall and 27-5 in the American Athletic Conference. The Knights are third in the American in recruiting over the last four seasons. Talent won’t be a problem for Malzahn at UCF compared to his time in Auburn, where the Tigers were caught up in the middle tier of the SEC in recruiting. Furthermore, expectations shouldn’t be an issue for Malzahn at UCF like it was at Auburn. The Knights don’t have to worry about competing with Alabama or Georgia, nor do they have to consistently compete on the national stage to appease the fan base.
He inherits back-to-back 3,500-yard passer Dillon Gabriel to jumpstart his offense going into his first season. UCF is a balanced fit for Malzahn because it provides the right framework (expectations and talent) to have longevity at the school, while the program is in the national spotlight enough to be a springboard for Malzahn back into the Power Five.
