After Gus Malzahn's tortured tenure at Auburn, who's next? It depends who's making the hire
Scattered, smothered, covered and chunked. That’s long been Gus Malzahn’s celebratory Waffle House hash brown order.
The trips to Waffle House with his wife, Kristi, helped perpetuate Malzahn’s everyman vibe during his time on the Plains. After his run as Auburn’s head coach ended on Sunday, Malzahn’s $21 million payout — including a $10 million-plus poison-pill payment within 30 days — would allow Malzahn enough hash browns to fill Jordan-Hare Stadium.
The ethos of his order — scattered, smothered, covered and chunked — can best be used to describe the dark arts that accompany this and every Auburn coaching search. Whenever a major decision has to be made in Auburn athletics, a familiar question emerges: Who will actually make it?
“No one knows who is in charge,” said an industry source. “They have to figure out who is making the hire.”
Who will be the latest Auburn coach to attempt to topple Nick Saban? There’s an old saying in the search industry that you can’t project a school’s hire when you don’t know who is making it. Allen Greene is Auburn’s athletic director, and he’s one of the sharpest young ADs in the industry. And there are few people who think he’s got the final say on this hire.
Greene’s voice is just one of many at Auburn, which has long had outsized booster influence, a meddling board and an institutional bloodlust to beat Alabama that’s occasionally blinding.
The thought when Auburn fired Malzahn was that it already had a candidate lined up. That’s what an organized and aligned school would do when it faces a payout well over $30 million before even paying the new coach’s salary. But at Auburn, that’s not the case. How’s the search going to proceed? Will there be a search firm? No one is sure.
Who Auburn is going to hire will in large part be rooted in who gets to make the decision. Here’s a handicapping of the Auburn search, with a warning that the search could well end up scattered, smothered, covered and chunked.
Auburn’s three coaching targets
Lane Kiffin, Ole Miss – The adrenaline shot of momentum that Kiffin has given Ole Miss is real. It has shown up on the recruiting trail, in the offensive statistics and, of course, on social media. Ole Miss is 4-4, but it is interesting and relevant. That’s something Auburn has been missing. The spectacle of Kiffin vs. Saban would be amazing, an annual football apocalypse with 365 days of fireworks. Kiffin is one of the few hires that would rattle Alabama’s football building. (The thought of this could lead Ole Miss to extend him until 2032.)
Hugh Freeze, Liberty – Oh, there will be angst that comes with this. But say this about whoever makes decisions at Auburn, they certainly won’t let bad publicity and a sordid past get in the way of a controversial hire. They’ve hired, kept and extended basketball coach Bruce Pearl, after all. There’s no doubting Freeze’s coaching acumen, his ability to score points, call plays and beat Saban. His hiring would also be elite theatre.
Mario Cristobal, Oregon – The candidacy of Cristobal percolates with the possibility of building a recruiting machine to topple Saban. There’d be in-roads immediately to South Florida and an all-in dedication to the recruiting trail that could upgrade Auburn’s talent. The buyout for Cristobal is steep, but when you’ve already tossed $21.4 million overboard, what’s another $8 million. (If you consider taxes, it’s more expensive.) There’s real interest in him at high levels.
The rest of the list
Steve Sarkisian, Alabama offensive coordinator – There’s little doubt that Sarkisian has earned another shot at being a college head coach after he flamed out at USC. He’s turned down interest from Colorado, South Carolina and others. But the issue here is fit. Would Sarkisian’s West Coast vibe be the best long-term solution at Auburn?
Dan Quinn, former Atlanta Falcons coach – He’s got cachet in the footprint from taking the Falcons to the Super Bowl. He’s got SEC experience from two years as Will Muschamp’s defensive coordinator at Florida. He’d bring a pumped-and-jacked Pete Carroll vibe, which is the anti-Saban and could resonate on the recruiting trail. He’s light on college experience, which would be the drawback.
Tony Elliott, Clemson OC – He’s been picky as well when choosing when to leave Dabo Swinney’s side. Auburn appears to be a big enough platform for him. But is Auburn the place for a first-time head coach to make his mistakes? That’s what the administrators have to ask.
Brent Venables, Clemson DC – Don’t forget that Florida State showed significant interest in Venables last season. That job and Auburn are in the same paradigm, and this is the type of job that could lure Venables away from Clemson. The prospect of the Clemson archetype being built at Auburn to beat Alabama is intriguing.
Mike Gundy, Oklahoma State – Gundy has leveraged plenty of schools for raises in Stillwater. Would he be willing to leave after his team lashed out at him and he took a giant pay cut? Perhaps, but even Auburn may not be willing to take on the headaches that accompany Gundy’s consistent winning. And he’s not shown the recruiting metabolism to compete in the SEC West.
Billy Napier, Louisiana – Napier is stuck in the awkward netherworld between jobs that want him and jobs he’ll take. He needs to be careful of becoming too picky. Auburn did hire Malzahn from the Sun Belt, but he’d been there before and knew the place. This feels like a reach right now for Auburn, which is focused on beating Saban.
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