Mississippi State Football Opponents to Know: Gus Malzahn

We take a look at an offensive and defensive player from the 2016 Mississippi State Football opponents who will likely play a key part in the season, plus the opposing head coach.

The Mississippi State Football team will take on three teams this season which have coaches who might be coaching for their jobs. The first they will square off against is Les Miles and the LSU Tigers. Next will be Gus Malzahn and the Auburn Tigers.

Gus Malzahn has had an interesting coaching career. He spent most of his early career coaching high school football, most notably at Arkansas power program Springdale High School from 2001 to 2005. His college coaching career began when Houston Nutt hired him as offensive coordinator for the 2006 season.

The 2006 season with the Razorbacks is somewhat emblematic of his coaching career. There was a lot of success, but there was also a lot of turmoil.

The Razorbacks had one of the best running games in the country, and the team won the SEC West, but there was a lot of tension between Houston Nutt and Malzahn. It led Malzahn to leave Arkansas for Tulsa of all places.

In 2009, he was named as the offensive coordinator for new Auburn head coach Gene Chizik. The Tigers put up amazing numbers on the offensive side of the football in his three seasons as offensive coordinator. He was rumored to be a leading coaching candidate at several jobs, but elected to go back to his home state of Arkansas to lead the Arkansas State program in 2012

When Auburn went 0-8 in SEC play in 2012,the Tigers were ready to make a coaching change. They called up their former offensive coordinator after one season at ASU when he led the Red Wolves to the Sun Belt Championship.

2013 saw Malzahn lead the Tigers to the National Championship game and further solidified him as one of the best offensive minds in the country. But the struggles of the past two seasons have caused some of the shine on Malzahn’s coaching legacy start to dull.

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The Tigers went 8-4 after the 2013 season, and they followed it up with a very mediocre 6-6 season in 2015. The Tigers were lucky to make it to a bowl when it took a last second comeback to force overtime against Jacksonville State from the FCS.

After the last two seasons, we are now starting to wonder just how good the 2013 team was. They made it to the national championship game, but it took a length of the field closing moments drive against the Mississippi State football game to win it. The Tigers needed two of the most miraculous plays we have ever seen to beat Georgia and Alabama that same season.

Malzahn got the best of Dan Mullen and the Mississippi State football team in his first game against the Bulldogs. The last two seasons though have been quite the opposite.

Auburn could be facing two to three losses in their first five games of the season when they travel to Davis Wade Stadium to take on the Mississippi State Football team. If they leave Starkville with four losses on the season, Malzahn might not make it to a sixth game in 2016.

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