Auburn, Illinois fire longtime coaches Malzahn, Lovie Smith./
Double-digit losses to elite SEC teams costly
Auburn fired football coach Gus Malzahn, ending an eight-year run that began with a trip to the national championship game.
Athletic director Allen Greene announced the firing Sunday, a day after the Tigers finished the regular season with a 24-10 victory over Mississippi State. Auburn is 6-4 in a pandemic-shortened season of all Southeastern Conference opponents, losing by double digits to highly ranked teams Alabama, Georgia and Texas A&M.
The Tigers also were upset by a struggling South Carolina, which wound up firing coach Will Muschamp during the season.
Defensive coordinator Kevin Steele will be interim coach. Auburn will owe Malzahn a $21.45 million buyout for the remaining four years of a seven-year, $49 million deal.
The school must pay half of that within 30 days.
Malzahn went 68-35 in eight seasons and was 39-27 against SEC opponents. He led the Tigers to an SEC title in 2013, his first season, losing to Florida State in the national championship game.
Illinois: Illinois fired coach Lovie Smith on Sunday with a game left in its ninth consecutive losing season. Smith became Illinois’ first Black head football coach when he was hired by athletic director Josh Whitman in March 2016. The longtime NFL coach went 17-39 in five seasons at the school. Smith’s original deal was for six years and $21 million, but he received a two-year extension through 2023 after Illinois went 4-8 in his third season. The Illini (2-5) close out the season at Penn State on Saturday. Offensive coordinator Rod Smith was elevated to acting head coach.
Virginia: Virginia is not going to a bowl game this season. A week before bowl announcements are due, on Dec. 20, the Cavaliers announced that their football season is over and they will not be entertaining an invitation to a postseason game. The school said the decision came after the program’s captains and other leaders met with the team to discuss the postseason. The NCAA waived bowl eligibility requirements this year because of the coronavirus pandemic. Virginia (5-5, 4-5 Atlantic Coast Conference) had its regular season end Saturday in a 33-15 loss at Virginia Tech.
Top 25 poll: The first top-10 shakeup in more than a month pushed Coastal Carolina to No. 9 in The Associated Press college football poll. Alabama was a unanimous No. 1, followed by Notre Dame, Ohio State, Clemson and Texas A&M as those teams held their spots for a sixth straight week. Surprising losses by Florida and Miami shuffled the rest of the top 10. No. 6 Cincinnati and No. 7 Indiana each moved up one spot and No. 8 Iowa State jumped two. Then come the unbeaten Chanticleers (11-0), the first Sun Belt Conference team to crack the AP’S top 10. Georgia landed at No. 10 ahead of Florida at 11. The Gators dropped five spots after losing in bizarre and dramatic fashion to LSU in the fog Saturday night. Miami plummeted 10 spots to No. 19 after getting blown out by North Carolina. The Tar Heels moved up four spots to No. 16.
Bowls: Appalachian State and North Texas will play in the first Myrtle Beach Bowl on Dec. 21. The Mountaineers (8-2) and the Mean Green (4-5) will play at the campus of Coastal Carolina in the first Ncaa-sanctioned bowl game in the state of South Carolina. ... Memphis (7-3) and Florida Atlantic (5-3) accepted bids to play in the Montgomery Bowl. Being played as a substitute for the canceled Fenway Bowl, the game is set for Wednesday, Dec. 23 at the Cramton Bowl.