Gus Malzahn not concerned about job security after Auburn's loss at LSU

Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn reacts as his team falls behind to LSU in the second half during an NCAA college football game in Baton Rouge, La., Saturday, Oct. 14, 2017.

With a fan base up in arms following a blown 20-point lead in a road loss at LSU and pundits putting him squarely on the hot seat, Gus Malzahn is not concerned about his job security.

Auburn's fifth-year head coach, who is making $4.725 million annually through Dec. 2020, insists his team will "bounce back" from a 27-23 loss in Baton Rouge and "finish the season strong" with games against Texas A&M, Georgia and Alabama still remaining.

Asked if he's concerned about his job security, Malzahn said, "No, I'm not. The only thing I'm worried about is beating Arkansas and coming back and getting healed up for a week and try to finish this thing with the goals that we started to."

For the second time this season and after yet another gut-wrenching and hard to explain Auburn loss, as several have been over the past two years, Malzahn took ownership of the defeat in Baton Rouge.

Failing to hold on to a 20-0 lead, conservative play-calling with 17 straight runs on first downs, just 66 yards of offense in the second half, all of it.

"Blowing a 20-point lead was tough to take," Malzahn said. "And I just want to say this: I've got good coaches, I've got good players and anytime that happens that's on the head coach. That's on me. That can't happen again. It's not going to happen again. But I take full responsibility."

It's a message Malzahn has had to repeat after several of Auburn's losses over the past two years, which follow a common thread of second half offensive struggles, few third-down conversions and questionable strategy.

After this season's 14-6 loss to Clemson, the worst offensive performance of Malzahn's college coaching careerhe owned the frustration of a fan base frustrated with a performance that "looked the same" as the losses to Georgia, Alabama and Oklahoma at the end of the 2016 season.

Following horrendous offensive outings against Clemson and Texas A&M to open last season, Malzahn said those two losses "probably hurt me worse than any of the others. I fully understand our fan base is disappointed, and they should be. The bottom line is we've got to coach our players better, and that starts with me."

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Players have repeated much of the same talking points as their head coach, emphasized they've moved on from the loss and are still optimistic about what the future holds.

"Obviously, we're still a great football team," quarterback Jarrett Stidham said. "We've played a lot of great football up to this point. Obviously, it didn't go our way (Saturday), but that's that great thing about this is that we get to come back (Sunday) and get ready for Arkansas and we're looking to bounce back. We have a lot of great people on this team, a lot of great players, but we just got to get better."

After hearing much of the same rhetoric over the past two seasons, to say nothing of the disastrous 2015 season, Auburn fans are furious with Malzahn's leadership of the program.

That following Saturday's loss his initial message was "it's not the end of the world" and that Auburn still controlled its own destiny, which is not true, Malzahn only added fuel to the fire on the Plains.

"We've got great fans, and our fans are very passionate," Malzahn said. "Our fans want to win championships, and they should. Any time you blow a 20-point lead on the road, they should be frustrated; and I'm frustrated also. We can't let that happen again and we're not going to let that happen again. But in reality, after you get done with that, you've got to put it behind you. That's in the rearview mirror. We're moving forward and we've still got a good team. I think that's evident.

"We need to go to Arkansas and we need to win. Then we need that off-week. We need to heal up and we'll be set to finish this thing. That's our approach. That's our players' approach, and that's what we're going to do."

James Crepea is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @JamesCrepea.

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