Getty Picture / Don Juan Moore
It has been 4 seasons since Gus Malzahn was at Auburn, time he spent fruitlessly attempting to show the UCF Knights right into a extra enticing collegiate soccer program, and it has been lower than 2 weeks since Gus joined the Florida State Seminoles as Mike Norvell’s new Offensive Coordinator in Tallahassee. By all approximations, Gus Malzahn seems to be a stable match for FSU who’s in dire want of revamping this system after the worst season in FSU’s illustrious historical past.
Now that Malzahn is getting settled at my alma mater in Tallahassee there isn’t a scarcity of articles popping out about how he’s adjusting to the brand new position. One excerpt from one such article caught my consideration as a result of it seems like this dude is getting unintentionally hazed and/or emotionally tortured day-after-day on the brand new job.
In an Related Press article from Bob Ferrante, they painted an image of how the reminders of Malzahn’s previous shortcomings are omnipresent. There’s an image hanging proper outdoors of his workplace that commemorates one of many hardest moments of the previous Auburn head coach’s profession, the second the Seminoles got here roaring again to beat the Auburn Tigers within the 2013 Nationwide Championship after they determine that Gus Malzahn was stealing FSU’s indicators by Auburn place coach Dameyune Craig who had coached at FSU the earlier season and acknowledged that FSU wasn’t mixing up or masking its indicators. That excerpt reads:
Close to Gus Malzahn’s new workplace hangs an image of Kelvin Benjamin hauling in a landing cross from Jameis Winston, the play that helped Florida State beat Malzahn and his Auburn Tigers within the 2013 nationwide championship recreation. It’s a day by day reminder of Malzahn’s connection to the Seminoles.
“I’ve received to stroll by the image of the man catching the ball as I’m going to the workplace day-after-day,” Malzahn mentioned Wednesday. “That was an actual particular recreation. There have been a number of nice gamers on the sphere. It went right down to the very finish. It was most likely entertaining or a terrific recreation to observe. It was powerful, clearly, to be on the dropping aspect.”
I watched each second of each FSU recreation in that 2013 season with Jameis Winston and keep in mind being utterly dumbfounded by how impotent FSU’s offense, which was setting data by the sport, seemed in that Nationwide Championship in opposition to the Auburn Tigers. Really, I keep in mind pondering there should’ve been some cause the offense couldn’t get going that wasn’t simply ‘Auburn appears good’ as a result of that wasn’t it.
As soon as extensive receiver Kelvin Benjamin came visiting to then-head coach Jimbo Fisher after a 3-and-out to start out the second half and mentioned “Dameyune calling all of the performs, coach” the sport modified on a dime. FSU introduced out towels to masks the indicators and the offense practically doubled in yardage per play. Auburn had no solutions for that Seminoles offense that got here roaring again to grab the Natty away from Gus Malzahn’s Auburn Tigers that simply barely eked into the sport after ‘The Kick Six’ from Chris Davis in opposition to Alabama, which could be the single most enjoyable play in Faculty Soccer historical past.
Along with simply desirous to level out how Gus Malzahn is compelled to face his demons day-after-day within the hallways of Doak Campbell Stadium, I point out all of that as a result of I wish to illustrate how these moments will stick with Gus Malzahn not simply at FSU however perpetually. He was SEC Coach of the Yr in 2013 along with successful a bunch of different awards however the offensive coordinator position at FSU is his likelihood to show his profession round and do it with a program that’s additionally in dire want of assist.
FSU stinks proper now. Straight up. And there’s actually no signal of life but that issues might be higher subsequent yr. There’s hope from the Seminoles that they’ll discover a path to redemption by the switch portal however Gus Malzahn will play an instrumental position in turning issues round. Maybe he’ll be capable of leech off some expertise by the pipeline he’d developed at UCF, if such a pipeline exists, as a result of FSU has relied far too closely on the switch portal in recent times in lieu of recruting at the highschool degree. Solely time will inform.
