Auburn coach Gus Malzahn has done many things as a coach.
He’s coached a Heisman Trophy winner and two more finalists, been to two national championship games and overseen some of the most high-powered offenses in college football history.
One thing he has yet to experience in college coaching, or in his 15 season as a high school coach in Arkansas, for that matter, is losing. More specifically, Malzahn has very rarely overseen a struggling offense.
Malzahn began in the high school ranks, where he developed his trademark "HUNH" offense, racked up a 144-36-1 record and won three state championships before jumping into collegiate coaching as the offensive coordinator at Arkansas.
Malzahn’s offenses were near the top of college football statistically at Arkansas and Tulsa, but he made a name for himself nationally during his time at Auburn, where he was the coordinator of the 2010 offense that set nine school records.
After going 9-3 and winning the Sun Belt championship in his one season as the head coach at Arkansas State, Malzahn returned to the Plains and orchestrated the biggest one-year turnaround in college football history in 2013, when Auburn became only the second school in college football history to exceed 7,000 total yards in a season.
Auburn again found offensive success in 2014, but it has yet to find its rhythm this season, as the Tigers have stumbled to a 2-2 record.
The 2015 offense has nine turnovers in four games and recorded the worst yardage total in Malzahn’s tenure against LSU, when it gained only 260. Auburn failed to score an offensive touchdown against Mississippi State, the first time Malzahn has been held scoreless since the 2011 Iron Bowl.
“We take great pride in scoring points around here and playing well on offense and we haven’t done that yet,” Malzahn said at his weekly press conference. “There was times when we’ve done some good things, but we haven’t been consistent.”
The struggling offense is one reason the Tigers have tumbled from their position near the top of preseason polls and are likely eliminated from the College Football Playoff only a month into the season.
“It’s frustrating,” Malzahn said. “Our expectations are to be very good on offense, and I still feel like we’ll do that. We just need to do it soon.”
One of the many offensive problems is the lack of explosive plays this season. The Tigers have only eight offensive plays of more than 20 yards, something Malzahn said must improve if the offense hopes to produce better results.
“We haven’t had the explosive plays that we’ve had in the past,” Malzahn said. “And that’s what we need to do as coaches is figure out a way to manufacture those things with our guys … We’ve not been in rhythm, and we’ve got to figure out a way to do that.”
Partly as a result of offensive struggles previously foreign to Malzahn, he finds himself in an unfamiliar position, needing to turn his team around to avoid his first losing season as a head coach.
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