We’re nearly to the eve of SEC Media Week Days and one of the biggest storylines around the league comes on the Plains as Gus Malzahn enters the 2019 season on a bit of a hot seat after a pair of recent 8-5 campaigns sandwiched a 10-4 mark in 2017.
Contributing to the toasty furniture under the Tigers head coach? The fact that he’s playing for an athletic director in Allen Greene that didn’t hire him and one of his biggest supporters, Auburn president Steven Leath, is leaving the school.
It’s the latter name that is particularly noteworthy considering it was Leath who pushed for Malzahn’s mega $49 million extension in 2017 after Arkansas emerged as a threat to poach him away from their SEC West rival. While the size of the deal was surprising to some, so too was Malzahn’s hefty buyout -- believed to be in the range of $27 million this year for the program.
Well as luck would have it, Leath himself is receiving quite the buyout to leave the Plains this summer. Per the Opelika-Auburn News, the now-former president is being paid some $4.5 million over three years not to be at the school as part of his exit package.
Who knows if this will have an impact on boosters coming up with the spare change to oust Malzahn if he doesn’t meet expectations but it is noteworthy for a school that seemingly can’t quit paying people not to be there.
