Gus Malzahn is taking over at Arkansas State. Looks like a lot of assistants are coming to the sun belt to get their feet wet in the head coaching department. This is getting interesting.

Arkansas State Red Wolves introduce Gus Malzahn of Auburn Tigers - ESPN

and with a $850K salary to match!
:o

Yup, and our "new" guy is already in the botom half of salary! Did not take other schools long to adapt and respond yet we STILL don't even have coordinators on board let alone a coaching staff? >:(

GeorgiaOwl said

Yup, and our "new" guy is already in the botom half of salary! Did not take other schools long to adapt and respond yet we STILL don't even have coordinators on board let alone a coaching staff? >:(

Geez, GAOwl…are you ever happy??  Who cares about ASU and what they are doing.  If they want to blow their budget on a guy who has just as much head coaching experience as our new coach, good for them.  If we win, Coach Pelini will get his due.  I will say this about Malzhan…his offense went from National Champions to 104th in the country.  In Coach Pelini's "down" year this year, his D went from 11th to 36th.

I think the money is ridiculous, and something is completely out of whack that they would go from $225K with a coach they could have kept if they had not been so penny wise, to spending that for someone who is basically unproven as a head coach.

I do too Rick, four times the pay of the previous Coach? I beleive our hiring of Coach Pelini is a big part of that "knee jerk" reaction to losing Freeze as well. But bottom line, fauowls44, is IT WILL affect the entire Coaching budget at EVERY school, especially those with openings. We now have to compete with Arky St. for asst. coaches and salaries for the coming year.
But I listened to Coach P. on a radio interview on another thread and it sounded good that he is being patient to not settle or rush the OC/DC hirings and let those guys then hire who they want for their staffs. Makes sense, I just hate that he is out there now practically by himself while our competition has entire staffs recruiting all day every day. After all, there is only so much he can do by himself!

I think this was the best possible hire they could have made.

It is the best hire they could have made to make a splash.  However, the way thier offense dropped off after Newton left doesn't make him look very good.

walty12 said

It is the best hire they could have made to make a splash.  However, the way thier offense dropped off after Newton left doesn't make him look very good.

I think any offense would drop off after you lose a Heisman Winner that was the #1 pick in the NFL Draft and has a strong shot at being rookie of the year.

I don't think this is a "splash" hire. He coached high school football for over 10 years in the state of Arkansas and spent a year as the offensive coordinator at Arkansas under Houston Nutt. That spells out recruiting ties to the state. He was the perfect fit for an Arkansas State program that was looking for a new head coach.

He wants to prove that he can be a head coach in college football and he has a better chance of doing that at Arkansas State than at Vanderbilt.

I pictured Malzahn coaching in a higher profile conference than the Sunbelt.  If anything it does raise the stature of the conference  Who knows, we've all been pushing to go to Conference USA, maybe the belt surpasses that conference in a few years especially with many of their core teams wanting to bolt.  No place else has the speedy players like the Southeast.