AU FOOTBALL: Malzahn wants to play 'fast'

The product doesn’t exactly match the pitch-man.

Offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn talked at a steady, maybe even slow pace when he met with beat reporters last week.

The topic of discussion, something Auburn fans were promised not so long ago when a different offensive coordinator came to town, was the
exact opposite.

The number of times Malzahn used the word “fast” to describe the offense Auburn will run next season were nearly uncountable.

But will it be any different than Tony Franklin’s system, which left Auburn confused, disjointed and worse off than the past few years?

“You hear a lot about no huddle and a lot about ‘fast,’ but our goal is to play fast,” Malzahn said unprompted. “That’s who we are. That’s what we do. We’re not so much a no-huddle, look-to-the-side team.

“I like to think we’re a little bit different than everyone else.”

Malzahn said his goal is to run 80 or more plays per game. At Tulsa, he said, hitting that goal “usually equated to wins and losses.”

In order to do that, the Tigers have to be fast from start to finish.

If more than 15 seconds has elapsed from the time the ball carrier hits the turf to the next snap, something’s not working.

“With the old rules, when they put the ball down, we’re going to snap it within five seconds of when the referee puts the ball down,” Malzahn said. “Boy, I tell you what, these new rules they put in last year, for us, are really good. We’ll be extremely fast.”

That was the talk last year, also, but it never got past the talking stage.

Whether Franklin was handicapped in implementing his patented “System,” is up for discussion, but the results were an absolute failure.
When he was fired just six games into the season, Auburn ranked 104th in total offense (309.2 yards per game), 105th in pass efficiency (104.98), tied for 111th in red-zone offense (65 percent) and 112th in third-down conversions (29.7 percent).

It didn’t get much better thereafter, even though the season began with just as much hope for a speedy, Red-Bull-infused offense as it does now.

“Our players wouldn’t know how to get in (a huddle) if we wanted to,” Franklin said at his introductory press conference. “We play fast. We practice fast.”

Any mention or allusion to Franklin in Malzahn’s two meetings with the media since his hiring have resulted in terse answers.

“I’m not sure,” Malzahn said when asked if it would help that Auburn intended to have a fast offense last season.

Skepticism will likely be natural considering the similarities in Malzahn’s and Franklin’s promises, but Malzahn said he has grown accustomed to it.

His first college job, when he landed the offensive coordinator job at Arkansas after having just years of high-school experience on his resume, served as proper preparation, he said.

“I’m extremely motivated,” Malzahn said. “It really doesn’t make any difference as far as that goes. I have very high expectations and just really focus on my job at hand, so I don’t really get caught up in it.”

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