I'm continuing to drop some posts evaluating guys on my radar who could potentially be the next guy for VT. This is my fifth post. Checkout the previous four:
This week: Charles Huff
Who is Charles Huff?
Charles Huff is the 42-year-old head coach at Southern Miss who's in his first season transforming one of the Sun Belt's worst programs. The Maryland native has built a reputation as one of college football's elite recruiters and running back developers, having worked under Nick Saban at Alabama, coached Saquon Barkley at Penn State, and led Marshall to a Sun Belt championship before taking on the Southern Miss rebuild.
Huff is currently 3-2 at Southern Miss, a remarkable turnaround for a program that went 1-11 just last season. Before arriving in Hattiesburg, he posted a 32-20 record across four seasons at Marshall, culminating with a 31-3 Sun Belt Conference championship victory, which is extra impressive if you know what was going on behind the scenes at the Marshall Athletic Department.
He's built a career winning at programs with dysfunctional athletic departments
If you haven't followed the Marshall/Huff Saga, I'll try my best to summarize:
- Marshall expects to win the Sun Belt. Huff says "okay, cool, I need more investment" (aka NIL). Marshall leadership says nahhh win with this. Huff says 'I'll see what I can do'
- Players transfer and Marshall does not win the Sunbelt (shocker)
- Marshall beat writers, fans, and the administration are upset with good players transferring
- Huff says (a bit too candidly, during a press conference) that the administration has not provided him with the funding to keep players - The administration is now very butthurt.
- Huff walks it back publicly, but the damage is done: Administration refuses to extend his contract or fire him, effectively making Huff a lame duck coach.
- Huff in his final year of his contract wins the conference (actual shocker), leaves for Southern Miss (the worst team in the Sunbelt) before the bowl game. Marshall's entire roster transfers (before the bowl game) and Marshall has to pay a $100k fine for being unable to field a roster for said bowl game.
Most reporting (Godfrey on SZD; paywalled) frames this as a failure of the Marshall administration rather than Huff being an asshole, but most people also agree that Huff should have been a bit softer in his public criticism of the administration.
Epilogue: Marshall's AD Christian Spears was eventually not renewed specifically because he failed to retain Huff, a decision that looks increasingly foolish as Huff transforms Southern Miss LOL
At Southern Miss, Huff walks into another (albeit different type of) dumpster fire: The Golden Eagles went 1-11 in 2024, didn't win a single Sun Belt game, and fired coach Will Hall mid-season. The program had 3 different coaches within an 8ish week span. Since arriving at Southern Miss, Huff has brought in over 70 transfers, has already won 4 games (equal to the total number of wins in the 2023 and 24 seasons combined), and will likely make a bowl game.
For Virginia Tech—a program that's dealt with its own administrative dysfunction and budget constraints—Huff's ability to succeed despite organizational challenges might be exactly what's needed. He's proven he can win when the deck is stacked against him.
He embraced the transfer portal like no other coach
Huff brought amost 70 new players to Southern Miss in his first season, completely rebuilding the roster through the transfer portal. That's not a typo. 54 transfers, 13 new enrollees (and then I round up to the nearest 70 for impact). Seventy new players. About 20 following Huff from Marshall.
According to Claude (aka I didn't double check this) the Southern Miss roster includes 17 former SEC players, nine former Big 12 players, and five former ACC players. Surprisingly none of which are from Virginia Tech. At Sun Belt Media Days, Huff explained his philosophy:
In today's college football, I'm not playing with a 1-11 team. I'm playing with the team that I recruit."
Damn. That's some big dick energy.
His coaching pedigree is elite
Before becoming a head coach, Huff assembled one of the most impressive assistant coaching resumes in college football:
- Penn State (2014-2017): As running backs coach and special teams coordinator, Huff recruited and developed Saquon Barkley, who became a consensus All-American, two-time Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year, and the second overall pick in the 2018 NFL DraftHuff flipped Barkley from his initial commitment to Rutgers, even though Barkley wasn't even rated as the top running back in Pennsylvania at the time.
- Mississippi State (2018): In his one season in Starkville, Mississippi State's running backs ran 253 times without losing a fumble once. Unsure if Huff employs the Shane-Beamer-Boxing-GloveTM, but he maybe he has something better.
- Alabama (2019-2020):As associate head coach and running backs coach, Huff mentored Najee Harris, who won the 2020 Doak Walker Award for the nation's best running back en route to Alabama's 18th National ChampionshipIn 2020, Harris led the nation in total touchdowns (30), rushing touchdowns (26), and points (180)
He's a proven elite recruiter
While at Alabama, Huff gained a reputation as one of the top recruiters in college football. He's worked under James Franklin at Penn State and Maryland, under Nick Saban at Alabama, and has built his own recruiting machine at Marshall and now Southern Miss.
At his introductory press conference at Southern Miss, Huff promised a recruiting weekend "like you have never seen" with "fireworks, helicopters, hot air balloons"—because, in his words, "those kids are that important to what we are trying to build."
For Virginia Tech, which has struggled with recruiting in recent years, bringing in someone who learned from Saban and Franklin while also building his own recruiting infrastructure (at multiple under-resourced programs) could be transformative.
The concerns are real, but manageable
Would I have concerns with a Huff hire? Of course. He's only been a head coach for five seasons (four at Marshall, currently in his first at Southern Miss). His lone season at Southern Miss is still in progress, so we don't have a full body of evidence yet.
I also wonder how his brash personality will play at Virginia Tech. While the situation worked out fine for him, his honesty with Marshall's fans and administration was... not well received. Is this brashness the kick-in-the-ass that VT needs, or is the fan base and administration going to take offense?
Why Huff makes sense for Virginia Tech right now
Virginia Tech needs someone who can:
- Win despite institutional challenges (check)
- Aggressively use the transfer portal to immediately upgrade talent (check)
- Recruit and develop elite skill position players (check)
- Build a program from scratch quickly (check)
Huff is currently making $950,000 annually at Southern Miss, so we can afford him. I think he'd be willing to take on another rebuild, and as a Maryland Native, I think he'd thrive in this region (or at least Steven Godfrey does, and I choose to blindly echo that sentiment).
Would I prefer someone with more sustained head coaching success? Sure? But also, Huff has rebuilt programs, won a conference championship, and recruited at the highest level in the sport. If VT announces Huff as the next head coach, I'd be cautiously optimistic about the future.
Comments
Another excellent write up. I think Huff would probably not be received with tremendous excitement by the fanbase, but your check list here:
Paints the picture pretty clearly that he would be well-suited for the job at an outside glance. His biggest knock, despite coaching at major programs, is that he has only been the head coach of G5 teams. That is NOT an indicator that his success wouldn't continue, but it is at the very least a question mark. Using your old SEC/B1G connections to get transfer downs from those schools is important, and many of those players would likely help VT, but he would also need to show he can pull a higher level of transfer in terms of winning the players who have big time P5 options. I think his history as a recruiter suggests he can handle that level up in difficulty.
Yea.. I don't think Huff wins the press conference, but I think he wins on the field.
There's this interview with Tennessee AD Danny White (that I think about all to often) where he talks about how he only hires coaches who he thinks can have a winning record in year 1, even if it means you turn down talented, proven coaches, because year 1 is so important.
Given Huff's willingness to completely overhaul a roster in a single offseason, I think he could get us to a winning (or .500) record in year 1. Given Danny White's comments that I think about far too much, I think that's something that we should look for.
I'm also a bit dissatisfied by the search committee. I think it's a sign of dysfunction. I think it's a sign that we've discovered the problem, but not the solution. I think Huff could come in, cut through that bullshit, and get people in line.
Shelton may beg to differ!
As I wrote in the other thread, there aren't programs any more just teams, Danny seems to agree, if you can't win year one in this environment then how do you win year 2?
Look at us since 2018, and the conference we're in. A G5 level of talent, coaching, and overall management would be a vast improvement.
My only note of caution is that Justin Fuente fit Danny White's model and took his first team at Tech to the ACC Championship Game. That leads to my only concern regarding Coach Huff, that his public persona much like the aforementioned Mr. Fuente might not endear him to the Hokie Faithful and admin. Still all things being equal, winning buys you a lot of grace ... until it doesn't (Just ask Seth Greenberg).
Yeah, but Greeny was an asshole and all his assistants quit/left because of it. He left the admin no choice but to fire him.
Lots of guys were set up to win immediately after Beamer, other than QB that team had a lot of talent
Man do I appreciate the work you are doing with these write ups. Top notch. Thank you.
I have learned a lot from each of the profiles you have assembled. I can only hope the selection committee has this kind of detailed information on each candidate under consideration.
Based on this review of Huff, I have gone (from an ignorant and uninformed starting point) from
To
The Marshall debacle made Huff lose prestige mentally for me by association to that mess. Reading the title i expected this to be a "meh" option for me, but I think I'd actually be excited by this.
It would check some of the boxes that were exciting about Pry (experience at elite programs, strong recruiter, local ties). But would hit the giant, gaping hole in Pry's resume: he has been a head coach before and has won doing it.
My main concern would probably be potential friction with whatever football front office we end up rolling out. If the messaging mess around the start of the coaching search is any indicator, I imagine there will be some growing pains. Him publicly shitting on the administration when those occur will not be a recipe for success.
I agree.
I don't know for a fact how much of the Marshall debacle was Huff being an ass vs Marshall denying reality. Though most reports/gossip seem to give Huff the benefit of the doubt, I have to imagine it's a combo of both. From afar, his personality reminds me a bit of Cignetti (one Illinois fan told me "he's a complete c*nt, but he's our c*nt").
I don't know if that type of person would succeed or fail at the current iteration of VT athletics.
I'd hope it would succeed and we could get past this "aw shucks, this is home, we're little old Virginia Tech in the mountains, we're just lucky to be a member of the ACC" bullshit loser's mentality.
We need someone with that killer instinct who knows how to win and hates to lose. If he's a total shitbird while winning games, who cares? What are they gonna do, fire a winning coach because they don't like *how* he's winning?
THEY DON'T ASK HOW, THEY ASK HOW MANY!
I don't have numbers to back it up, but my memory tells me that, with Beamer being the exception to the rule, the majority of the most successful coaches throughout the history of college football were total shitbirds while winning games. I would take that in a heartbeat.
I bet Huff would do EVERYTHING to clear off Ballein.
IDK how many people remember the debacle with Slawney hitting a VT tennis player while she was in a crosswalk, but when you say "do EVERYTHING"...
I never knew it was a female or a tennis player. I just knew he hit somebody in a crosswalk. I always wondered if he did it out of a lack of common sense or he got impatient and wanted to teach somebody a lesson? Because he looked down his nose at everyone.
It was the tennis player that only had 1 arm! I remember being in his class and the ballsiest kid on the planet asked a hypothetical question about a 1500 lb object moving at 15 mph colliding with a stationary 120 lb object, how far would the 120 lb object move" and the guy totally not putting 2 and 2 together.
I just realized y'all are talking about Josef Slawny, the physics professor?
God, I still have nightmares about his "bead on a rotating hoop" examples for small harmonic oscillations. It was the only example he had ever conceived of, apparently.
Russian dude? I remember going into his office for help in physics 2. He was so shocked, I was afraid I walked in on something illegal. Never got higher than a 40% on any assignment, finished with a B in that class. Pretty sure it's because I went to office hours that one time.
Yeah same story (minus the office hours). I had him for physics 2 and basically failed every exam but somehow passed the class 🤷. I didn't even bother going to his office. Went to Dr. Chang's office hours instead.
Had Dr. (Lay Nam) Chang for Quantum Mechanics. Can't remember if it was undergrad or graduate level, I think the latter. And I think he was the dept head at the time. Heck of a teacher, though. Really could explain a concept well.
Looking through the current faculty (https://www.phys.vt.edu/About/people/Faculty.html), there are only two names left that I recognize, both of which I had as a professor. I had Dr. Piilonen for a modern/particle physics class early on, and I took multiple classes from Dr. Simonetti, who taught (along with Einstein clone Dr. IForgetHisNameRightNow) most of the astronomy/astrophysics classes, along with an independent study I had with him about programming orbital mechanics.
To be fair, this was 30 years ago, plus or minus, so I'm not surprised there are only two left.
Legit the best actual teacher I had in college. And he was very nice too. I went to him for all kinds of questions in classes he wasn't even teaching lol (like Slawney's)
Yep 4 questions right on a 11 or 16 question test was a C. I think an A was getting 6 right. I remember there being 8 people actually in attendance by the second week of class.
then I round up to the nearest 70 for impact
Wrong move here. Shoulda stayed with the SIX SEVEN
Sorry. I have a middle schooler. Its all I hear....
Dude I am totally loving these though. Thank you so much for putting them together!
When I was in high school our football team had a code number of 42. Correlated to the letters DB. My wife and I still use it in public. When 6-7 started, she started answering back with 42. Her students still haven't figured it out.
OK, this is a funny coincidence.
When I was young, 42 was the reference to The Restaurant at the end of the Universe. The answer to life and everything....
I had a "kid" try to boomer me and answered "6-7". I countered with "42. He said "Huh?"
I laughed my ass off and so did his dad that was there with him.
86 = take something back to the kitchen in a restaurant my brother Mark worked at.
159 = the internal phone number at the morgue at Montgomery Regional Hospital when I worked as an orderly in the late 80s/early 90s and meant pick up a body to transport there. That would be for someone who had a do not resuscitate order.
If they did not have a DNR order, I would be called with a "Code 1" to come and do chest compressions. Probably more information that people want, but figured is we were doing numbers ...
Typically in a restaurant, 86 means you're out of something. For example, "86 prime rib" means we don't have anymore prime rib, so tell all the servers to stop selling them because we're out.
As Ron Swanson would say: "I'm afraid what you heard is " I want a lot of prime rib." What I really want is 86 prime ribs."
We weren't far enough along in life to know Hitchhiker's. More along the lines of 311 meaning KKK and other dumb bullshit.
I never could figure out the 311 reference. I spent time out of the country for nearly the whole of the late 80's and so missed a bunch of cultural stuff then.
311 is a letter offset reference.
3 × 11th letter.
I had no idea that Nick Hexum was connected to the Klan. Now I feel all mixed up, and I don't know what to do.
This one I still dont understand. My elementary schooler will come home off the bus asking what things mean and we have to look them up
That's the point of 6-7 according to my kids. It doesn't really mean anything. Its intent is to be a no answer when responding to questions from adults they don't want to answer
Wait I thought we all came to agreement it was Mullen on the last one. /s
Huff was the guy I wanted last time...
Thanks for this. I am definitely higher on Huff now (there's a good pun in there somewhere).
♪ Huff, the magic head coach, from Mississippi ♪
♪ But does he have the experience to be hired at VT? ♪
In 2022 Huff goes to South Bend and beat ND. Clearly outplayed the Irish. Then in the next two weeks they lost to Bowling Green and Troy. Concerning.
The week after beating Notre Dame they had a down game against an okay Bowling Green team that went into OT. And then lost 16-7 to an excellent 12-2 Troy team coached by Sumrall, possibly the hottest coaching name this year. Marshall went 9-4 that year! I don't think these two losses are an indictment of Huff's ability to run a program and win games.
Yea some of those Troy players transferred to Tulane with Sumrall
Whit: I'm sold, when can you start?
I wouldn't be upset with Huff tbh
After reading this review and comparing to the others thus far, Mullen is still my # 1 and Huff is my #2. I would be happy and excited about either of them and feel they both are well within reach.
Cig and Sum would be the ultimate "phuck yeah" moments if we landed either, but we all know these aren't happening.
Bar, these are extremely insightful write ups. I had an inkling of interest with Huff before your review. Now...well, see above. Many thanks for these reviews.
I was also pretty *whatever* about Huff before diving in here! But now I think he's my #1 realistic choice (in part because I no longer think Mullen or Campbell are realistic)
It's funny. I have this unexplainable gut feeling that Huff would crush it here. How he handled Marshall is what we will need, to a degree, with the VT old regime.
I think he would extract the best from our players from a mental/psychological perspective.
This is the feeling I get from your write up. If my gut feelings were to serve as the crystal ball, I would be elated to have him be our HC.
I would hope the old regime would be gone by the time he gets here. All of the Ballein's, anybody tied to Beamer or Fuente or Pry. Down to the social media, game day video production, practice video camera people, everybody except the custodians.
We need new blood, fresh ideas, and people with modern experience in big time college football.
I really hope not. Cleaning house of the video staff would impact a lot of local jobs for people that the new coach isn't likely to bring with him. New bosses maybe, but firing the camera guys?
Most of them are students on scholarships equivalent to the football team - Tom and Jed are the exception. Source: My roommate had that job in college.
LOL. The custodians are the first that need to go. Why? Because they know everybody in the building, Talk to everybody in the building. And most importantly, go through everybody in the buildings trash! The custodians know it all!!! /s
Then they are the ones the new coach needs to give a raise to for providing all the inside knowledge to really clean house.
Exactly. My wife was a "troubled" kid turned teacher. She was always friends with the custodians in school and knew going into her first job that the first friends you make in a school are the custodians. They'll take care of you first before they get around to the other people who look down their noses at them. Whether it's cleaning, supplies, or info, they'll have your back first.
Facilities
IT
Kitchen
Custodians
Your Boss
Your Team
Everyone else
Marketing
That is the order everyone matters at work. You want a good office with a nice chair and good monitors, start making friends.