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 (including former UCF coach Josh Heupel, now at Tennessee) . … 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.”
