Malzahn is famously remembered for Auburn’s magical 2013 season, which included ‘The Prayer’ and ‘Kick Six’ plays.
His 2013 Auburn team narrowly lost the BCS national championship to Florida State in the final seconds.
Malzahn was an offensive innovator known for his hurry-up, no-huddle scheme that revolutionized college football.
These opportunities are so rare, so fleeting, the enormity of the loss is sometimes never felt until the end.
Until you’ve decided you’ve had enough, and 35 seasons of coaching football and doing everything to chase that championship dream is finally, almost mercifully, out of reach.
Gus Malzahn retired Tuesday, walked away from his job as offensive coordinator at Florida State and officially ended almost four decades of doing the only thing he ever wanted to do.
“I’m excited to spend more time with my family, and focus on the next chapter of my life,” Malzahn said in a statement.
But it’s that one chapter, the magical season of 2013 as coach at Auburn, that will never, ever be forgotten. The one season, and the one near-miss at championship glory.
The Prayer at Jordan-Hare. Kick Six. The once in a lifetime trip to The Grandaddy of Them All.
And finally, The Drive from Jameis Winston and Florida State in the waning seconds of the Bowl Championship Series national championship game to end what would’ve been the most unthinkable national championship run since Auburn pulled off the dang thing three years earlier — with Malzahn as offensive coordinator.
A play away — Winston’s 2-yard touchdown pass to Kelvin Benjamin with 13 seconds remaining — from Malzahn joining the exclusive national championship club.
Who knows where Malzahn and Kristi, his bride of 38 years, will finally settle down after his nomadic, Hall of Fame-worthy career. Maybe in Florida or Alabama, maybe back home in Arkansas.
But that one season at Auburn, when everything that could go right did, won’t be far from his mind. A season when he took a defensive back-turned-quarterback (Nick Marshall), an undervalued running back (Tre Mason), and an afterthought wide receiver (Sammie Coates), and turned the SEC sideways with his hurry-up, no-huddle offense.
How Auburn went from 3-9 in 2012, to one play from winning it all in 2013.
How do you forget fourth-and-18, and down one with 36 seconds to play against bitter rival Georgia? Marshall launched the Hail Mary heave into the chilly November night on The Plains, and it was tipped by a Georgia defender and plopped directly into the hands of wide receiver Ricardo Lewis ― who ran it in from the 10.
How do you forget Alabama coach Nick Saban — fresh off back-to-back national championships at Alabama and needing only a win over Auburn to likely play for a third — screaming at officials and demanding that one second be placed back on the clock because Tide running back T.J. Yeldon got out of bounds before regulation expired?
So the officials convened and, of course, did what King Nick said, and the next thing you know, Saban is trotting out his kicker to try a 56-yard field goal. Malzahn called timeout to ice the kicker, and then decided to send defensive back Chris Davis to the end zone.
You know, just in case the kick was short and Davis could take a one in a million shot at the greatest play in the modern era of college football.
Fair or not, that season is what Malzahn will be remembered for. The SEC championship in 2013 that followed the Kick Six, and the near miss in the Rose Bowl.
But his career was so much more than that.
The national title in 2010 as the Auburn offensive coordinator, when he got an uber-talented project of a quarterback ready to play week after week, and Cam Newton put Auburn on his shoulders and won it all.
The hurry-up, no-huddle offense, the scheme that revolutionized the game in the mid-2000s and had everyone trying to replicate it. It got so good, it gave SEC defenses so many problems, Saban actually complained to the league that it was a health risk.
Imagine that. Saban couldn’t figure out how to consistently stop it, so he concocted the health excuse. There couldn’t have been a bigger tip of the cap.
Especially when Saban later used a similar no-huddle offense to build his greatest championship teams.
Through the years at Tulsa and Arkansas State, at Auburn and Central Florida and finally one season at FSU, Malzahn’s career-long calling card never wavered. Run the ball, throw off play action.
He just executed it differently than everyone else.
That’s more important than a national title, anyway.