Sometimes when a coach is fired by a school, there can be some ill will held by both parties.
That definitely won’t be the case with Gus Malzahn who was fired after eight seasons in charge of the Auburn football program back in December. On The Paul Finebaum Show on Wednesday, the new UCF head coach spoke on how he still feels about his time on the Plains.
“I was at Auburn 11 years and I’ve got nothing but great memories,” Malzahn said. “It was a great experience. My family loves Auburn and we’re part of the Auburn family. We always will. We’ll be rooting hard from here for them. But it was just — both of my daughters graduated, my son-in-laws, both of them graduated from Auburn. We’ll always be a part of the Auburn family.”
Malzahn record a 68-35 overall record during his time as head coach of the Tigers including a SEC championship, two SEC West titles and a spot in the BCS National Championship Game. As the offensive coordinator from 2009-11, he helped mentor Cam Newton on his way to winning a Heisman Trophy and lead the Tigers to the 2010 national title.
Owed a $21 million buyout from Auburn due to his firing, Malzahn seemed to be on his way to sitting out a year before the UCF job became open a couple of weeks ago.
“I’ve coached for 30 years straight. Never had a break,” Malzahn said. “First time in my life in 30 years to sit back and say, ‘Hey, got time to reflect. What’s the next step?’ Me and Kristi, we took about a week or two, we prayed about it, thought about it, ‘What’s that next step look like?’ It took about two weeks and I started getting that coaching itch again. I love to coach. Really, I was planning on possibly doing some TV, some radio during the offseason, gearing up for next year. But when this job came open — from the outside I’ve always said, ‘If the right guy ever got to UCF and would stay there and build it, everybody else would be in trouble.’ I was real attracted and got excited about it.”