Malzahn was underrated as a recruiter and overrated as an "offensive mind". Defense carried a lot of his teams. I do think Malzahn was a good coach, but he wasn't always great with player development.
If anything, Heupel reminds me more of Spurrier. Great offensive mind, great at player development, good but not great recruiter.
I know people are going to say that's a stretch, but is it? When Spurrier dominated the SEC at Florida, that was an easier time to "outcoach" and win without having elite talent. Now it's much tougher. Even Spurrier last few years at Florida were tougher; he was 27-9 his last 3 seasons, which is great, but nowhere near his 6-year run from '93-98. And he was good at South Carolina, with three 11-2 seasons, but he was never in the hunt for a national title and had a lot of 7- and 8- win seasons.
If I had to estimate where Heupel ends up, it's somewhere between Florida Spurrier and South Carolina Spurrier.
The Mizzou loss sucks a lot, but we were already playing "thin" at several positions and that game was an injury-fest if I ever saw one.