Former Auburn football coach Gus Malzahn will be UCF’s next head coach, sources told ESPN.
A deal is being struck and an announcement from UCF could come as early as Monday. Malzahn emerged as UCF’s lead candidate on Sunday. Yahoo first reported the appointment.
Malzahn, 55, was fired on December 13 after eight seasons in Auburn. He was 68-35 overall and 39-27 in SEC play. Malzahn took the Tigers to the national championship game in his first season in 2013. They won 10 games and entered the SEC championship game in 2017, but went only 14-12 over the next three seasons against SEC opponents.
Malzahn replaces Josh Heupel at UCF. Heupel left for the job last month as head coach in Tennessee.
Malzahn signed a seven-year $ 49 million deal after the 2017 season and was owed a $ 21.7 million buyout by Auburn when he was fired in December. Malzahn was only 8-17 against SEC rivals Alabama, Georgia and LSU, but he was also one of the few college football coaches to have some success against Nick Saban in Alabama. Since the start of the 2013 season, Saban has been 65-6 against SEC opponents, and three of those losses have been to Malzahn.
UCF’s new athletics director Terry Mohajir and Malzahn briefly crossed paths in the state of Arkansas. Three months after he was named Arkansas state athletics director in 2012, Mohajir had to find a replacement for Malzahn when he left for Auburn.
Sean Lewis, Kent’s national team coach, was also among those eligible for the UCF job, according to sources.
ESPN’s Chris Low and Adam Rittenberg contributed to this report