“What Convinced Gus Malzahn He Needed to Hire Kenny Dillingham”

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Ten years ago Gus Malzahn was introduced to Mike Norvell, a graduate assistant at Tulsa. Today, Norvell is a successful head coach at Memphis. The two remain friends, and lean on each other so much for advice, Malzahn turned to his former pupil last week to hire away one of Norvell's pupils. Think of it as father and son, and then a grandson being introduced into the fold. That's how it works in the coaching industry sometimes, and for Auburn that meant Malzahn hiring away 28-year-old Memphis offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham to coach quarterbacks. Malzahn was introduced to Dillingham in the spring, when the Auburn coach visited a Memphis practice. It was Dillingham's first spring as Memphis' offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. "Got a chance to watch this guy in the meeting room with his quarterbacks," Malzahn said. "It was very impressive with his energy, his detail. He just made a great impression on me. Then I got a chance to go a watch a practice and watch him do his thing. Really left that practice field thinking, 'That guy there, I'd like to hire him someday.' It's pretty unique from that standpoint, that he's here with us. Really, I thought it was the perfect fit from the standpoint that he did the same thing for Mike Norvell he's going to do for me. Mike calls the plays. Of course, Mike was my [graduate assistant]. We're kind of from the same way of thinking." Dillingham hit the road recruiting soon after his hiring late Sunday night at Auburn, and attended the Tigers' first practice Thursday in preparation for the Music City Bowl. "Very excited about Kenny," Malzahn said. "He is an energetic guy. He's a very good recruiter. He's very relatable. He's already working hard to develop a relationship with our quarterback." Dillingham will not be heavily involved in the Tigers' preparations for the bowl game against Purdue. Kickoff is Dec. 28 at Nissan Stadium in Nashville. He will sit in the booth "and do some assisting," Malzahn said. "But he will not get full force until we get to the spring as far as that goes," Malzahn said. "Moving forward, I'm calling the plays. As a matter of fact, I'm very excited about that. Really, that's probably my true comfort zone. I'm really looking forward not just to the bowl game, but going into next year. We've got a lot of our guys back. We've got a chance to be really good on offense. So real excited about that. That's something that I'm really looking forward to."

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