Arkansas State, Of All Places, Lands Auburn’s Gus Malzahn

This man is probably the fan of the year -- this is college football; our year runs until the end of the BCS Championship. If nothing else, the man brought the most creative sign you’ll probably ever see. It wasn’t just some play on words, it was ... well, just see for yourself.

Via Amanda Kaschube and Illegal Shift

Gus Malzahn met with the media at Arkansas State on Wednesday as he was introduced as the team’s next head coach. For Malzahn, one of the highest-paid assistant coaches in the country, the move comes as a surprise in some ways, and not in others. He’s a native of the state and was reportedly recruited for the job by Hugh Freeze, resulting in his decision to move from an SEC coordinator job to a Sun Belt head coaching job.

Malzahn called the Arkansas State job the right fit at the right time. He said he’d explored other head coaching jobs in the last two years, having got the bug to become a head coach, but wanted to wait for the right opportunity to present itself.

It might be a long time before we know exactly how ASU pulled this off, but Freeze might have played a larger role in the transition than you’d think. According to a post on Arkansas State site The Den, Freeze helped to secure the Red Wolves his replacement:

So Hugh Freeze is now the world’s greatest college football coaching consultant? Maybe Arizona State and Penn State should’ve just hired Hugh Freeze last year, then sent him along somewhere else and waited for the replacement talent to arrive? He could spend one year at each program in the country, for a fee, and nobody would ever hire a NFL retread again. You don’t have to make it so complicated, guys. Just give it a couple years and Freeze will find the perfect head coach for Ole Miss. I think that’s how this works?

Financial terms and everything. It sounds like the deal involves a little bit more money than that, but Roussel was certainly in the ballpark. Either way, the point here is Broyles Award winner Malzahn will be making at least half a million less than he was making at Auburn, and taking on greater responsibility in the process.

Whatever the number ends up being, it’s something like three or four times what Hugh Freeze made in 2011 as ASU’s head coach. Malzahn will likely be the highest paid coach in the Sun Belt. That sentence felt so strange to type. Try it yourself here: _____________________________________.

Gus Malzahn? Settle down, Red Wolves:

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