UCF’s Malzahn needs to copy Spurrier

ORLANDO, Fla. — And the inaugural winner of the Steve Spurrier Award for the top first-year head coach in all of college football is (drum roll, please) …

Gus Malzahn, UCF Knights! “Coach Gus is up for the award and he’s got an excellent shot down there at UCF,” Spurrier said recently when I asked him about Malzahn’s chances of duplicating the success Spurrier has traditionally had when taking over new programs. “Every first-year coach has a shot at it. … I’m looking forward to honoring a guy that comes in his first year and says, ‘Hey, we can win here now. We don’t have to wait until we get all of our own recruits in and blah, blah, blah.’ I admire those coaches that eliminate the excuses.”

This is why Malzahn (a former University of Arkansas assistant and Arkansas high school coaching star of note) needs to channel his inner Spurrier, who, no matter where he coached throughout his college career (Duke, Florida and South Carolina), always got his players to believe they could win and win immediately. This is why it’s absolutely perfect that Steve Spurrier’s name was recently put on the new Football Writer’s Association of America award that will honor the best firstyear head coach at a new school.

“When I got the Florida job, I had lunch with one of our big boosters — Alfred McKethan, a wonderful guy who gave the Gators a bunch of money and whose name is on the baseball stadium,” Spurrier remembers. “At that lunch, he said, ‘Steve, let me tell you something: We don’t expect much your first couple of years here, but after that, we think we’re supposed to be good in football.’ And I said, ‘Mr. McKethan, let me tell you something: We’re going to be good in football and we’re going to be good in the first year!’ And he looked at me like I was crazy. Back in those days, coaches would poor-mouth their teams instead of saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got a bunch of good ballplayers and we can play with anybody.’ ”

How confident was Spurrier that he could win in that first year at Florida in 1990? He addressed the biggest Gator Club in the state up in Jacksonville before he ever coached a game at Florida and told the crowd his quarterback, Shane Matthews, would have a chance to be the SEC Player of the Year. Such a concept seemed preposterous at the time. Matthews had been fifth on the depth chart before Spurrier arrived, but sure enough, Matthews won the SEC Player of the Year after leading the league in passing and quarterbacking the Gators to a 9-2 record and a first-place finish in the conference.

When he replaced Galen Hall as the coach of the Gators in 1990, he inherited a mediocre, ground-and-pound team that relied on the running of Emmitt Smith to finish 6-5 the previous season. When Spurrier took over, he turned that mundane ground-and-pound into the pyrotechnic Fun ‘N’ Gun — and the rest is college football history.

But taking over as a first-year coach isn’t just about changing offensive schemes; it’s about changing attitudes, expectations and culture. Spurrier was shocked and appalled during his first week of practice at UF when freshmen players were hazed by the upperclassmen and showed up with their heads shaved.

Recalls Spurrier: “I asked one of the freshmen what happened and he told me, ‘The older guys cornered us and shaved our heads. That’s what they do here.’ So I got the team together and told the upperclassmen, ‘We’re not doing this harassment crap here anymore!”

One of the upperclassmen raised his hand and said to Spurrier, “But, Coach, it’s a Florida football tradition to shave the heads of the freshmen.”

Spurrier fired back: “I know another Florida football tradition — getting on the bus, going to Jacksonville and watching Georgia kick our butts up and down the field. We’re going to stop that tradition, too!”

How does this all relate to Malzahn? Here’s how: Like Spurrier back in the day with his Fun ‘N Gun, Malzahn is considered a master of the up-tempo, no-huddle offense. And like the teams Spurrier inherited, Malzahn is taking over a program that was mediocre last year, had some disciplinary issues and lost some of its mojo.

Even though many UCF fans believe — as they do every year — that the Knights will go unbeaten, most of the college football experts don’t expect much from Malzahn’s team. Cincinnati, ranked No. 8 in The Associated Press preseason poll, is the consensus pick to win the American Athletic Conference. Moreover, there are three Group of 5 teams ranked in AP’s preseason poll and UCF is not one of them.

Can Malzahn get UCF’s players to hop on the Gus Bus in Year 1 and then convince them they are championship material?

As former Gators wide receiver Chris Doering says: “Coach Spurrier was able to get guys to believe, and that’s one of the most powerful forces in the universe — the ability to believe in yourself and the ability to believe in each other.”