You won’t find it in the nightstands of hotel rooms in Auburn, but there is a good book about the Tigers’ offense.
The author is Gus Malzahn, whose Auburn team will follow the concepts he wrote about a decade ago when it faces Missouri in the SEC Championship game Saturday at the Georgia Dome.
The book isn’t a bible on how to stop his offense, but Malzahn said it provides insight into how he has been able to call plays that have piled up yards from Tulsa, through Arkansas and onto The Plains.
“We take our players, and we kind of build around the strengths of our quarterbacks each year,” he said.
Seems simple, no?
Malzahn’s quotes are as dry as the toilet paper that still festooned parts of Auburn’s campus two days after Saturday’s win over Alabama.
In interviews with former players and a former assistant coach, Malzahn is underselling what has enabled him to rocket up the coaching ranks. When he wrote the book, titled titled “The Hurry-Up, No-Huddle: An Offensive Philosophy,” he was a high school coach in Arkansas. With a win Saturday, he has an outside shot at coaching for a national title.
Observers say that Malzahn is very good at teaching schemes, at communicating changes during the game, and at adapting year to year or week to week.
“His offense changes every year,” said former Auburn tight end Philip Lutzenkirchen, who played for Malzahn when he was offensive coordinator. “But also every week. You can run one offense against UGA and put in a completely different scheme for Bama. He uses what the defense gives, but molds it around what his players do best.”
The flexibility can be attributed to his time as a high school coach in Arkansas in which every year coaches have to work with what they’ve got. He led three high schools to state championship games, winning several, and became known as an up-tempo offense, passing-game guru in the mold of Steve Spurrier, whose “Fun ’n’ Gun” system at Florida Malzahn said he admired.
Malzahn was so successful as a high school coach that Houston Nutt hired him as offensive coordinator at Arkansas in 2006.
Eyebrows were raised: a high school coach making the job to offensive coordinator, and not as a position coach?
“I remember the big deal when he got into college,” said Arkansas State defensive coordinator John Thompson, whom Malzhan hired in 2012 when he was head coach there between Auburn stops. “Will it work in college? That’s been answered.”
When he arrived at Arkansas, he inherited an offense that featured running backs Darren McFadden and Felix Jones, so the Razorbacks ran all the way to the SEC Championship game, which they lost to Florida. The Hogs finished with 3,199 rushing yards.
Malzahn left to join Tulsa, and the Golden Hurricanes passed for 4,870 yards in 2007 and totaled more than 7,000.
Malzahn eventually landed at Auburn as coordinator for the 2009, and the offense took on a more balanced look that helped Cam Newton win the Heisman Trophy and the Tigers a BCS championship in 2010. They averaged 41.2 points, 284.8 rushing yards and 214.4 passing yards per game.
The Tigers have used a similar look this season with quarterback Nick Marshall, who is a different type of runner than Newton, better on the edges than up the middle. This season, Auburn has averaged 38.6 points and 318.2 rushing yards per game, with an in-conference high of 444 yards, and 172.8 passing yards per game, with an in-conference high of 339 yards.
Lutzenkirchen said that balance represents Malzahn’s ever-changing mission statement on offense: “A downhill run game with play-action elements off of the run game. We will run until we can’t, but we can surprise you with big, fast receivers deep.”
The fact that he is able to adapt the scheme, and then teach it to the players so quickly, is one of the more remarkable things.
Running back Corey Grant, who has gained 585 of Auburn’s 3,819 rushing yards this season, said it isn’t an easy system to learn, but it is easy to run. The ability to teach schemes is one of Malzahn’s strengths.
Chris Todd, who quarterbacked Auburn in 2009, said Malzahn takes advantage of every opportunity in practice and in meetings to work on things, whether concepts or route combinations.
“He puts a lot of things on your shoulders, but he’s able to relay exactly what you want you to do, and do it a lot,” Todd said. “By the time the Thursday and Friday meetings come around, you’ve seen them so many times you don’t have to think as much.”
That will be the challenge Missouri faces Saturday: Do the Tigers load up to try to stop the run, or sit back and try to stop the pass?
“They’re a great running football team with a great quarterback and a great scheme that causes every defense nightmares,” Missouri coach Gary Pinkel said. “It’s going to be about discipline. It’s going to be physical. But it’s going to be assignment football also. Hopefully we can get our scheme down and give our best efforts.”
And Malzahn’s book won’t help anyone stop it. So save the $13.50 listing price on Amazon.
Malzahn said giving away secrets was something he thought about when he began writing it.
“He has so many counters,” said Thompson, whose Arkansas State defense gave up 301 rushing yards and 167 passing yards to Auburn in a 38-9 loss earlier this season. “You can dial in to what he’s going to do, but as soon as you think you have it zeroed in, he has a counter that blows up in your face.
“It can be big plays and very dangerous.”
About the Author
