Gus Malzahn on leaving UCF for Florida State: ‘I’m just an old-school football coach’

Gus Malzahn made an unusual move nearly two weeks ago, giving up a Power 4 head-coaching job to become an assistant again.

The 59-year-old Malzahn — Auburn’s head coach from 2013-20 — left Central Florida after four seasons to become offensive coordinator at Florida State under Mike Norvell. He told reporters in Tallahassee on Wednesday that the demands of the head-coaching job were different than when he first got into the game, and not in a good way.

The job description of a head college football coach has changed dramatically in the last two years with everything — transfer portal to collectives to agents and everything that goes with that,” Malzahn said. “I’m just an old-school football coach.

“I love coaching football, and head coaches, it’s hard to do that a lot. So that had something to do with it. And then the opportunity and being familiar with Mike and having so much respect for this university, coached against this university in the national championship. I know what this place is capable of doing.”

Malzahn was fired in 2020 after eight seasons at Auburn, whom he coached to an SEC championship in 2013 and an SEC West title in 2017. He went 68-36 with the Tigers and 29-24 with the Knights, but just 4-8 this season.

Malzahn now joins the program that denied him a national title after the 2013 season, when the Seminoles beat Auburn 34-31 in the BCS national championship game. He gave up a $5 million salary at UCF to earn $1.5 million at Florida State and will try to turn around an offense that averaged a little more than 15 points per game as the Seminoles collapsed from 13-1 and ACC champions in 2023 to 2-10 this year.

I’m a big believer you’ve got to run the football downhill,” Malzahn said. “It makes everything better as far as pass protection, better on the quarterback, everything. … And we’ll get that done.”

Malzahn made his name as an offensive coordinator, spending time at Arkansas and Tulsa before Gene Chizik hired him at Auburn in 2009. Along with quarterback Cam Newton, he helped the Tigers to a 14-0 record and the BCS national championship in 2010.

Malzahn left Auburn after the 2011 season to become head coach at Arkansas State, whom he led to a 9-3 record in one season. After Chizik was fired after the 2012 season, Malzahn returned as head coach.

Throughout his tenures at Auburn and UCF, Malzahn struggled with the idea of whether or not he should be both the team’s head coach and primary play-caller. Norvell had similar issues last year at Florida State, and has turned play-calling responsibilities over to Malzahn.

“Our foundation on offense is from the same family,” Malzahn said. “He’s got his own wrinkles, and I’ve had my own wrinkles. But there is a lot more things that are in common. We still have the same terminology, the way we identify things like formations and player alignment, numbers.