Gus Malzahn has been an assistant or head coach at Auburn all the way dating back to the 2009 season — with the exception of his one season at Arkansas State in 2012. Despite that history with the program, Malzahn has never been to The Swamp.

That will change Saturday as the 5-0 Tigers will face off against the 5-0 Gators on CBS with a national television audience watching.

During his first media availability of the week, Malzahn shared his initial thoughts on Florida’s team, with his thoughts focused on the Gator defense.

“It’s going to be a real test, there’s no doubt. They got an excellent defense that could really run, they’re aggressive,” Malzahn said on Sunday night. “Their defensive coordinator is an aggressive-type of coach. We’re expecting a really good test.”

Considering he’s never been to Gainesville as an opposing coach, how does Malzahn prepare his team for the challenge of playing in The Swamp? Expect the Tigers to pump up the noise all week during practice as Malzahn is expecting the loudest road atmosphere of the season on Saturday.

“That’s really what you do; really (pipe in) the noise,” the Auburn coach said. “The great thing, we even did it last week. It’s just preparing for these road games that we have. That’s really what we decided to do. We did it in fall camp and hopefully that will pay off because we do understand that it’s probably going to be louder than our last road game.”

Of course, the opposing head coaches in this matchup know each other well dating back to Dan Mullen’s days at Mississippi State. Malzahn currently holds the advantage in the series between the two coaches with a 3-2 record with Auburn winning the most recent battle against Mullen’s MSU team 49-10.

Here’s what Malzahn had to say about facing Mullen once again.

“I’ve got a lot of respect for Dan. I mean, he’s one of the best coaches in our league,” he noted. “He always has a good plan. His teams are always tough to prepare for and they’re going to be prepared, so it ought to be a good one.”

Lastly, on finally making the trip to The Swamp, Malzahn commented that he can scratch Ben-Hill Griffin Stadium off his bucket list on Saturday, as he’s coached in every other SEC stadium until now.

“This will be my first time to ever go to Florida,” Malzahn said. “I’ve been to every other place in our league but Florida. This will be a first. Looking forward to it. Yeah. That is pretty unique.”