Gus Malzahn received the 2010 Broyles Awards, for being a top NCAA Division 1A assistant football coach. He now replaces Hugh Freeze as the head coach at ASU.
Tuesday night, the Internet just about melted when surprise news broke that football coach Gus Malzahn will return to his home state to coach the Arkansas State Red Wolves. Malzahn helped coach Auburn to last year’s national championship, more than fours years after he last coached in Arkansas as the Razorbacks’ offensive coordinator.
Malzahn assumes the ASU job at a time when the Red Wolves program is one of the nation’s hottest. Departed head coach Hugh Freeze led the Red Wolves to a 10-2 record and GoDaddy.com bowl berth this season.
In his 14 seasons as an Arkansas high school coach, Malzahn developed an extensive network of friends and disciples. The 46-year-old will likely hire some of them as assistants in Jonesboro. His most successful season in Arkansas came in 2005, at the head of Springdale High School, a juggernaut of a team many consider as the best in this state’s history.
For fun, Sync’s Sports Seer asked what would happen if that Springdale team played this season’s Pulaski Academy, which boasts even more dominant offensive statistics. P.A.’s coach shared some of his insight here.
Also for fun, Sync wonders if Malzahn will not only keep up ASU’s current level of success but raise the program’s status to far higher heights. He’ll surely be able to recruit the state’s top football players (who don’t sign with the Hogs) and he should attract new fans to the program, but how many? It needs to be a lot, as some estimates have Malzahn’s pay at roughly $600,000 more than Freeze’s.
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Wifey’s craziness is one thing; it’s Gus’ own overheated ego I’m more worried about. “Email-gate” was nothing more than Gus throwing Houston Nutt under the bus to build up his own ego (along with Mitch Mustain’s, which was appropriately flattened by USC); he’d have taken the Ole Miss job if they hadn’t wisely offered it to Hugh Freeze instead.
Personally, I think the Malzahn hire only assured it’ll be *another* 60 years without a UA-ASU rivalry. The arguments John Barnhill came up with in the ’40′s & ’50′s simply don’t hold water today; but personally I will *NOT* support us playing ASU as long as Malzahn has anything to do with the program. I’d much rather have seen them hire Nutt than the egomaniac Malzahn…
I hear this a lot, but don’t hear any specific acts attached with the accusation.
What are Gus’ top three acts of egomania outside of the year 2006?