By Rock Westfall
Nobody ever thought they would live to see Florida State suffer a double-digit loss season, something that hasn’t happened in 50 years. Yet, they saw it in 2024.
Also, nobody could fathom that FSU head coach Mike Norvell could go from a 13-1 season to a 2-10 campaign within 12 months. Yet, it happened this year.
Norvell built his 2023 ACC championship team by effectively using the transfer portal. But when those players bailed on him after Florida State was rejected for the 2023 College Football Playoff, Norvell was caught with his pants down. His lack of emphasis on recruiting caught up with him and he was caught holding an empty bag.
If not for a buyout estimated to be $64 million, Norvell would be out of work right now. Florida State extended Norvell to fend off Alabama and other potential suitors. Now, it regretfully wishes it had not panicked like that.
This week it was announced that Norvell, with his credibility and nerves frayed from a catastrophic campaign, hired Gus Malzahn as offensive coordinator. Malzahn was head coach of the UCF Knights, where things were rapidly deteriorating after a 4-8 season, Malzahn’s second consecutive sub-.500 campaign.
Gus came to UCF from Auburn, where he was paid $21.7 million to get lost after failing to reach the lofty heights of his first season.
More Sports News
Thank you Knight Nation! pic.twitter.com/WUFFY5e2Hx
— Coach Gus Malzahn (@CoachGusMalzahn) December 4, 2024
All Downhill For the Gus Bus Since Its 2013 Peak
On January 6, 2014, Gus Malzahn’s Auburn Tigers led the Florida State Seminoles in the BCS National Championship Game 31-27 with 1:19 left to play. At that moment, Gus Malzahn reached the pinnacle of his career.
Subsequently, Florida State responded by driving 80 yards for the win in a heartbreaking 34-31 final. Gus Malzahn and Auburn have never been so close to a natty since that fateful night. Still, as Auburn left the Rose Bowl field, the Gus Bus was assumed to be rolling into overdrive for a promising future of dominance.
When Auburn destroyed a good Missouri team in the 2013 SEC Championship Game 59-42, shredding the helpless Mizzou defense into pieces with Malzahn’s famed zone-read offense, Gus was proclaimed to be the man who was about to reinvent football. Except he did not.
In 2014, defensive coordinators cracked the code of the Gus Bus. Malzahn’s offenses became mediocre in most years and bad in a few others. After that epic 12-2 run in 2013, Malzahn never lost fewer than four games every season as a head coach at Auburn and UCF. Furthermore, from 2014 through 2024, Gus lost five or more games in eight seasons at Auburn and later UCF.
By the time the Gus Bus pulled out of the Plains, his reputation for offensive magic was not the same. Yet his brand was credible enough that UCF came calling in a hurry when Josh Heupel unexpectedly left for Tennessee.
The theory was that Malzahn would thrive in the less competitive American Athletic and later Big 12 Conference with lighter competition and the bountiful Florida recruiting footprint. However, it never came close to turning out that way.
The Gus Bus rolling into Tallahassee is faulty, unreliable, and has an alarming CARFAX report, yet Mike Norvell bought it as is at an inflated price.
Why?
Here to the end. Fire Gus Malzahn. 😤 pic.twitter.com/RMmxDEFWtD
— Trent Phillips (@TrentPhillips_) November 30, 2024
A Mentor Hire Like Ryan Day & Chip Kelly?
Mike Norvell was a graduate assistant at Tulsa under Malzahn, where the two connected. This is similar to Ohio State, where Ryan Day hired his mentor Chip Kelly away from UCLA to serve as Ohio State’s offensive coordinator. The Day-Kelly combo produced mixed results this year, with an offense that was solid, though not that prolific and one that stalled in a catastrophic loss to Michigan last week.
It is fair to wonder why Malzahn would leave UCF, where he was head coach of a program that lacked the pressure of a blue-blood gig yet had plenty of potential and advantages. Malzahn was due to make $16 million over the next three years as UCF head coach.
The only logical explanation is that Malzahn must have known he was a bad fit and that increased misery beckoned in the years to come. He also has generational wealth in the bank and doesn’t need the heartache of being a head coach. If Gus still had his old fire, desire and drive, it’s unlikely he would have left Orlando.
Indeed, Gus’s bank account and his quitting on UCF as its HC do raise concerns about his hunger and willingness to grind. Norvell will start 2025 on the hot seat and can’t afford to be wrong. Malzahn’s HC career flamed out miserably at UCF after he was run out of Auburn on a rail.
Norvell touted Malzahn for his innovative offensive mind and a “proven track record of developing elite offenses everywhere he’s been.”
That delusional statement is simply not the case whatsoever. Rather, it is the epitome of wishful thinking.
In 2013, the Gus Bas ranked 12th in the nation for scoring offense. However, since that dream season, Malzahn’s offenses ranked 27th, 75th, 49th, 27th, 48th, 28th, 90th, 38th, 31st, 42nd, and 82nd for scoring.
Malzahn was in his fourth season at UCF and seemingly should have had things together by now instead of producing the worst offense and record of his tenure.
Also, remember that Bo Nix needed to escape Malzahn for Oregon, where he developed into a starting NFL quarterback. Meanwhile, Dillon Gabriel left Gus for Oklahoma, where he emerged as a star. Gabriel is now the quarterback of No. 1 ranked and undefeated Oregon. For Nix and Gabriel, stepping off the Gus Bus early literally saved their careers.
The record shows that the Gus Bus was broken long ago and is beyond repair.
Mike Norvell just bet his career on an unreliable Gus Bus. Apparently, he did so out of warm memories of his days as a GA under Malzahn at Tulsa.
Apparently, Mike Norvell is suffering from a football version of PTSD.
Multi-millionaire Gus Malzahn isn’t suffering at all and wants for nothing even as he has failed to adapt to the modern game.
And that may be what the problem is.
