Auburn and Gus Malzahn have agreed to a contract extension that will run until the 2020 season. This new deal is an essence a one-year extension, as Malzahn’s previous contract ran through the 2019 season.

James Crepea of AL.com was the first to report the news.

Malzahn also received a pay increase of $250,000 per year. The Tigers’ coach will now earn $4.725 million in the final year of his deal, which now runs through Dec. 31, 2020. His original deal called for him to make $4.35 million in 2016.

Last week during the SEC meetings, Auburn athletic director Jay Jacobs gave Malzahn a vote of confidence saying: “He’s our coach and he’ll be our coach for a long, long time.” News of this extension seems to prove those words were more than simply lip service.

Malzahn has had to deal with a number of critics following last season’s 7-6 campaign. If that record wasn’t bad enough, the Tigers entered the season as a consensus Top 10 preseason team and were picked as the preseason SEC Champions by the media during SEC Media Days.

After leading the Tigers to the 2013 National Title Game in his first season as head coach at Auburn, Malzahn has gone 15-11 overall since and 6-10 in SEC play.