For the third consecutive season, Auburn will be hiring a new defensive coordinator to work under head coach Gus Malzahn.

And that’s alright with him.

Malzahn, who spoke at the Nagurski Award banquet on Monday, expressed that he did not regret making the decision to bring new South Carolina coach Will Muschamp on board for the 2015 season following his firing as head coach at Florida in 2014.

A snippet of what he said on Monday night:

“Will (Muschamp) worked extremely hard and did a very good for us. I knew eventually that he wanted to be a head coach. It just so happened that he got a head job in our league this year that he couldn’t turn down.”

That’s coming on the heels of a statement by Muschamp expressing some “regret” over the 6-6 season he experienced at Auburn earlier in the day during his introductory press conference at South Carolina.

AL.com’s James Crepea has the quote, which followed with some optimism for whoever the next guy is to take the job for Auburn:

“I think there’s some really good football players on the defense and some guys that played extremely well for them this year,” Muschamp said. “I certainly believe there’s a lot of success to be had, there’s no question about that. Is it difficult to go through another transition for those players? It certainly is. I hate it for those kids and I hate it for their experience.”

Auburn will be in search of its fifth defensive coordinator in six seasons, and seventh in the last 10 years.

Malzahn indicated that finding some stability in that role would be a top priority for his next hire, which does not have a clear timetable for being completed at this point.

“We’d like to get somebody that we’ll get some stability,” Malzahn said, according to Crepea. “We’ve got some very good kids, got some very good players and that’s what we’ll be looking for.”