UCF crowd starts 'Fire Gus' Malzahn chants amid blowout vs. BYU
The UCF Knights have struggled mightily this season on the gridiron. They’ve lost four straight, and they are starting their fifth straight loss right in the face against BYU on Saturday. The Cougars were throttling the Knights 37-18 late in the fourth quarter, and the unrest amongst the UCF fan base was unleashed against head coach Gus Malzahn.
Fans started chanting ‘Fire Gus’ chants as the final minutes of the blowout loss winded down.
UCF ended up losing to BYU, 37-24, but that will do little to ease the pain of the Knight fan base. It’s never a good sign when chants like that break out.
UCF extended the contract of Gus Malzahn in 2023
Malzahn and UCF actually agreed to a new contract that extended him through the 2027 season in October of 2023. That new deal raised his salary to $4 million per year. The deal rises to $5.5 million annually in 2026 and 2027, according to Pete Thamel of ESPN.
“We went to Gus after spring football to discuss the bright future we believe we have with him as our head coach. We felt stability and recruiting in college football are more important than ever to build a program in the Big 12,” said UCF vice president and director of athletics Terry Mohajir in a press release issued by the school in October of 2023.
Malzahn has spent time as a head coach across a number of different stops across the college football landscape. He went 9-3 in 2012 in his lone season as the head man of the Arkansas State Red Wolves. ASU made it to the GoDaddy.com bowl but did Malzahn did not coach in the bowl game
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From 2013-2020, he spent time as the head coach of the Auburn Tigers. He had two seasons of 10 wins or more, with Auburn finishing with a 12-2 overall record (7-1 in the SEC) in 2013. They lost in the BCS National Championship Game, 34-31, to the Florida State Seminoles and Jameis Winston. In 2017, he led Auburn to a 10-4 overall record and 7-1 in the SEC. The Tigers ended up going to the Peach Bowl, where they lost. Overall, Malzahn wrapped up his head coaching career at Auburn with a record of 68-35 (38-27 in the SEC). He was the second longest tenured head coach at one school in the SEC. Malzahn also held the best record against former Alabama head coach Nick Saban.
While he had a very good first two years at UCF–nine wins in back-to-back seasons, things have not come as easily lately for the college football legend. In 2023, he went 6-7 with the Knights. And after a 3-4 overall start this year, fans in Orlando are clearly not pleased.
Malzahn began his coaching career in his home state of Arkansas, where he was a legendary high school football coach there. He spent 14 seasons there in the high school coaching ranks as a head coach, leading seven teams to the state championship game and winning three state titles.
Known as one of the nation’s most impressive and innovative offensive minds in his career, Malzahn’s teams have put up prolific numbers over the years, especially at places like Tulsa, Auburn, and even at UCF.