Auburn fires Gus Malzahn

Auburn is now in the market for a new head coach.

Gus Malzahn has been let go by the Tigers. The Auburn Football program officially announced the move on Twitter just about a half hour ago. Kevin Steele, the team’s defensive coordinator, will be acting as the team’s interim head coach for the remainder of this truncated season.

Malzahn’s departure from the program comes after eight seasons as head coach. In that time period, Gus went 68-35 as head coach with a 39-27 record in SEC play. The Tigers won the SEC Championship and competed in the BCS National Championship Game in his first season as had coach. From there, the Tigers would win one more SEC West Division Championship in 2017 and netted double digit wins in two seasons (2013, 2017). They competed in three big bowl games — the BCS National Title Game, the 2016 Sugar Bowl and the 2017 Peach Bowl, but lost all three. They never had a losing season, but did record four seasons in which they finished in third place or worse in the SEC West.

This divorce seemed somewhat inevitable considering he was seemingly on the hot seat from day one. There’ve been a lot of rumors stoked around him and the job for the last few years. Given that his buyout is a whopping $21 million+, it seems that the decision makers are content with letting this go down. Time shall soon tell what comes next for the Auburn program with whomever they go with. It’s an intriguing job that has a lot of benefits to it, but we shall see what the future holds for them.