Although college football is still more than six months away, there’s a buzz on the Plains following the firing of Gene Chizik and the return of Gus Malzahn, who takes over the reigns of the program.

Malzahn’s story is fairly well known from when he was hired as the Tigers’ offensive coordinator in 2009 under Chizik. After a 15-year tenure at the high-school ranks, Malzahn was the offensive coordinator at Arkansas for a season before taking the same job at Tulsa, where his name blew up.

The successful coaching under Todd Graham raised the assistant coach’s stock and after what he accomplished at Auburn in three years earned him his first head coaching job at Arkansas State.

Although inexperienced, Malzahn’s return to Auburn less than a year after leaving, came after he led the Red Wolves to a 9-3 record, winning the Sun Belt Conference.

The new coach made a huge splash, hiring Rodney Garner away from Georgia as the associate head coach.

Before spending 12 years in Athens, Ga., Garner was an all-SEC offensive lineman for Auburn in 1988 and coached for the Tigers from 1990-95.

After being the assistant head coach under Mark Richt and also being the recruiting coordinator, Garner will lead recruiting at Auburn, as well.

One of Malzahn’s first hires was Ellis Johnson, who is the epitome of experienced. Johnson has been in the coaching game since 1975 and has spent the last 20 years at the college ranks, splitting time between being a head coach, defensive coordinator and position coach.

Johnson’s resume highlights include being the defensive coordinator at Clemson (1995-96), Alabama (1997-2000), Mississippi State (2004-07) and assistant head coach at South Carolina (2008-11).

Charlie Harbison was brought to the staff after spending 18 years of coaching in the SEC and ACC, adding even more experience to an already experienced staff.

Named the co-defensive coordinator, Harbison and Johnson are familiar with each other after working together at Clemson, Alabama and Mississippi State.

Melvin Smith was hired as the defensive backs coach after spending the previous seven years at Mississippi State, including coaching 2012 Jim Thorpe Award winner Jonathan Banks.

Prior to coaching the Bulldogs, Smith spent time at Texas A&M and Alabama.

On the offensive side of the ball, Malzahn’s right-hand man Rhett Lashlee will be making the play calls.

Also a young gun in the game, Lashlee was not only the offensive coordinator under Malzahn at Arkansas State, but has also worked under the second-year head coach for his entire career other than his one year as OC at Samford.

One of the more exciting hires by Malzahn came with former Auburn quarterback Dameyune Craig.

Along with being named the co-offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach, Craig returns back to the Plains after spending three years at Florida State as the quarterbacks coach. He also marks the third top recruiter from his previous school to join the staff.

J.B. Grimes will be responsible for coaching a young offensive line. Grimes held the same position last year under Malzahn at Arkansas State.

Along with Lashlee’s offense averaging 481.8 yards of offensive last year, Grimes’ line gave up the 16th fewest sacks in the country.

Tim Horton was originally hired to coach tight ends but will now coach the running backs. Horton comes to Auburn after spending the previous six seasons coaching running backs at Arkansas. He was also the recruiting coordinator for five of those six years.

Horton has a 23-year career and was recognized as one of the top recruiters in the country while he was at Arkansas.

With Rich Bisaccia leaving to coach for the Dallas Cowboys, Scott Fountain will coach tight ends and special teams. Fountain has handled the day-to-day aspects of Auburn's recruiting since 2009.

Despite the disappointment of the 2012 season still lingering, the new staff under Malzahn has a positive buzz back in Auburn, similar to when Chizik was hired in 2009. With things looking up, it appears everyone is hopping on the Gus Bus.