After beating the division rival Ole Miss Rebels in Oxford, Gus Malzahn avoids being fired as the Auburn Tigers head coach for at least another week.
No, it doesn’t seem like much, but Auburn Tigers head coach Gus Malzahn looks to keep his job for another week. Auburn has been by far the most disappointing team in the SEC this year with already three conference losses on the season. The Tigers improve to 5-3 (2-3) on the year after beating their SEC West rival Ole Miss Rebels on the road in Oxford, 31-16.
Had the Tigers stumbled to 1-4 on the year in SEC play to Ole Miss this week, we could have seen an end to the Malzahn era down on The Plains. Malzahn may be 50-25 overall in his 4.5 years as the Auburn head coach. However, had Auburn lost to a mediocre Rebels team on the road, there was a chance Auburn may have missed out on a bowl game.
Looking ahead at Auburn’s remaining four games, the Tigers would only be favored over the Liberty Flames the rest of the way. Auburn has to play three more ranked SEC rivals in the final third of their regular season: Home versus the Texas A&M Aggies on November 3, at cross-divisional rival Georgia on November 10 and on the road at the arch rival Alabama Crimson Tide on November 24.
Auburn began the year as the No. 9 team in the country. Though the Tigers beat the No. 6 Washington Huskies in a neutral-site affair in Atlanta Week 1, that doesn’t look to be all that impressive of a win in hindsight. The Huskies are no longer a viable College Football Playoff threat with two losses already on the year to Auburn and the Pac-12 North rival Oregon Ducks.
With losses already to the LSU Tigers, the Mississippi State Bulldogs and the Tennessee Volunteers, it’s safe to say that Malzahn’s seat has gotten incredibly warm in recent weeks. He is the fifth-highest paid coach in college football. His lofty salary might make some universities hesitant towards canning him, but not a football blue-blood like Auburn that should be winning 10 games annually.
Auburn is less than a year removed from winning the SEC West and possibly becoming the first two-loss team to each the College Football Playoff. That might have been the case had the Tigers beaten Georgia in the 2017 SEC Championship Game in Atlanta last December.
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What it looks like now is that Auburn was only capable of beating two SEC teams that won’t be bowl eligible in Ole Miss and the Arkansas Razorbacks. Overall, Auburn will probably go 6-6, maybe 7-5 if they are lucky in the final month of its season. Auburn could move off Malzahn in the coming weeks. For now, this road victory over Matt Luke’s Rebels ensures us that the Gus Bus will be rolling along for at least another week or so.