Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn
By Brett Hudson
The latest breed of new coaches into the Southeastern Conference have done their fair share of precedent bashing: Will Muschamp turned Florida’s prolific spread attack into a downhill running, pro style attack, while Hugh Freeze “upset the apple cart” in making Ole Miss one of the nation’s fastest offenses.
Auburn is exempt from the natural growing pains as it hired Gus Malzahn as its new head coach, just two seasons removed from winning a national championship as the Tigers’ offensive coordinator.
The transition was seamless, as Malzahn noticed the team was conducting high-quality practices towards the end of spring and not allowing the growing phase to spill over into the fall.
“The last five practices, it started to click,” Malzahn said.
What Auburn does not have is a quarterback to run that offense. The Tigers have one of the best signal caller battles in the conference going into preseason training camp.
“We don’t have a quarterback yet. We’re going to give four guys an equal shot,” Malzahn said. “We hope to know earlier in fall camp rather than later, but we won’t make a decision until we are 110% sure.”
Malzahn liked what he saw from the position in the spring, however, and is a fan of the talent the Tigers have coming to campus soon.
“Jeremy Johnson has an NFL-type arm, it’s just a matter of how quickly he picks everything up,” Malzahn said. “Nic Marshall was a guy I was looking at when we were at Arkansas State.
