Offensive Gurus Steve Spurrier and Gus Malzahn Similar in More Ways Than 1
AUBURN, Ala. — Gus Malzahn used to wear a boring hat.
Around 2000, however, the Auburn head coach said he decided to make the switch to a visor—a style popularized by South Carolina head coach Steve Spurrier.
As Malzahn rose through the high school coaching ranks in his home state of Arkansas, he admired the success and innovation of the visor-wearing "Head Ball Coach" roaming the sidelines at Florida.
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"I’ve always looked up to Coach Spurrier," Malzahn said Tuesday. "I’ve had nothing but respect for the way that he operates. He’s got a great offensive mind."
On Saturday, the two great offensive minds will face off as opposing head coaches for the first time.
According to Odds Shark, the younger Malzahn and the defending SEC champions will have the upper hand as 17.5-point favorites over the struggling Gamecocks, but Malzahn said he expects a tough challenge from Spurrier's team.
"He’s a great competitor," Malzahn said. "He’s one of the better coaches to ever come through the SEC. You know he’ll have his team ready. They were ranked in the Top 10 to start the season for a reason. They won 11 games two or three years straight and they have good players. We expect to get their best. That’s how we’re coaching."
The two SEC head coaches have a mutual admiration on the field and a friendship off it.
Malzahn said when the two get together during the SEC's spring meetings, he is looking for much more than just sideline fashion advice.
"It’s really more of a respect deal, and you get to know somebody off of the field," Malzahn said. "He’s a great person and a guy that, from time to time, I’ll bounce things off of him. We visit at the spring meetings...I don’t get into X's and O's. It’s more of the wisdom part. He’s been there and done it and had unbelievable experiences—especially in our league."
Spurrier, who Malzahn admitted was the winner of their offseason golf games, said in his weekly press conference that he admired the Auburn head coach as one of the new wave of SEC coaches calling their own plays in a league historically dominated by defense.
"I think most all of us coaches, offensive coaches, that call plays, we sort of all like each other because we have so much in common," Spurrier said. "Hugh Freeze, Dan Mullen, it seems like we've got more head coaches calling plays now than hardly any time I remember."
The two offensive-minded coaches might get along off the field, but there is no denying there are several major differences between them.
While Spurrier makes headlines and sets Twitter ablaze regularly with his free-wheeling style of answering press conference questions, Malzahn plays it closer to the vest—more specifically, the sweater vest.
The two coaches also had different upbringings in coaching. Spurrier is a former Heisman Trophy winner who was already an SEC legend at Florida, but Malzahn played small-school football and flew under the radar at the high school level.
However, Auburn defensive coordinator Ellis Johnson, who was Spurrier's assistant head coach at South Carolina from 2008 to 2011, sees one major similarity between the two.
"The one thing they have in common is both of them...invented their offense," Johnson said Sunday. "That offense wasn’t borrowed from this guy and that guy, and this job I had four years ago and another guy that taught me how to do this. Both of them took an offense that they saw as a vision, and they both have such command for it because they know exactly what they want to do when you do something on defense."
Johnson said both coaches have such a handle on their personal offensive styles that the common practice of halftime adjustments doesn't necessarily work—these unpredictable offenses can change on the fly.
"You better get it adjusted the next play, because if you did something or took something away, it wasn’t going to take him another series or halftime adjustment to get you," Johnson said. "He knows his offense. He knows when to pull the trigger, and if you take something away, he knows how you did it and he knows what he’s doing to do to hurt that."
Malzahn said he enjoyed watching how Spurrier could do just that in the SEC by communicating and strategizing in a way the opposition in the SEC wasn't used to seeing.
Although Spurrier did it with the passing game in his "Fun 'n' Gun" offense in Gainesville, Malzahn has done it primarily on the ground with his "hurry-up, no-huddle" brand of football.
"I think what they've done is run the ball extremely well against everybody, just about everybody they've played," Spurrier said. "He has an excellent scheme."
But both coaches have become more balanced in their approaches to the game recently.
| Rushing YPG | 262.00 | 185.43 |
| Passing YPG | 225.80 | 265.40 |
| Run-Pass Play % | 64-36 | 52-48 |
Spurrier's South Carolina teams have had star running backs such Marcus Lattimore and now Mike Davis, and Malzahn's Auburn team is inching more toward passing with the development of Nick Marshall, Duke Williams and Sammie Coates.
Those schematic tweaks will play a major factor in Saturday's game.
"(Spurrier) likes to pass the ball, but his offense, he wants to run the ball," said senior defensive tackle Jeff Whitaker, who was part of Auburn teams that beat South Carolina twice in 2010 and once more in 2011. "You've just got to win your battles, because Coach Spurrier is a Hall of Fame coach because a lot of people tried to make him one-dimensional."
If Malzahn can secure a home victory against one of his coaching heroes this weekend, it could go a long way in getting his team back on the right path to Atlanta for another SEC Championship Game berth.
If the Tigers can once again run the table after their off week, Malzahn could join Spurrier as one of the only coaches to repeat as conference champion in the title-game era. From there, Malzahn would be well on his way to his plan for a Spurrier-esque dynasty of lighting up scoreboards and winning championships.
"We have high goals," Malzahn said. "We know we have to play well. We have to get better. Our players are committed to that."
For Malzahn, that would be something taken from Spurrier that matters a lot more than an item of headwear.
All quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. All recruiting rankings and information courtesy of 247Sports. All stats courtesy of cfbstats.com.
Justin Ferguson is Bleacher Report's lead Auburn writer. Follow him on Twitter @JFergusonAU.
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