Charles Huff woke up on December 8, 2024 a Sun Belt champion. 

At 8 a.m that morning, he was still the head coach that led Marshall to its first-ever Sun Belt Championship, finished the season 11-2 and became the first visiting team to win the Sun Belt title with a definitive 31-3 victory over Louisiana. 

At 10 a.m. he had informed Southern Miss, the last-place team in the SBC, that he would be their new head coach.

The internet exploded trying to understand the move. But Huff, like most college football coaches in this chaotic day and age, kept his head down and his DMs open.

“I’m a Sabanite,” chuckled Huff. “So the internet and social media world doesn’t really affect me, I really don’t pay a lot of attention to it…I was focused on the young men at Marshall that won a championship, being the first team in school history to win a Sun Belt Conference Championship. After that, I was engaged in the actual practicality of everything – moving families and situations and trying to figure out what we need.”

It wasn’t the fact that Huff was moving on from Marshall that sent Twitter (now X) into a tailspin – coaches with his kind of success get hired away all the time. It was the fact that he chose a program with only one win against an FCS opponent last season and a total of four wins in the last two years.

That’s not just a rebuild, that’s a complete reinvention. 

But Huff doesn’t see it that way. He believes that with the ever-shifting landscape of college athletics, the historical value of a program or an institution doesn’t carry as much weight as it used to. Young adults these days prefer to make their own history, bringing their own main-character energy, if you will.

“Young men and kids aren’t selecting logos, history and tradition anymore, they’re selecting relationships and resources,” emphasized Huff. “So when you say last year Southern Miss was 1-11, well the young men that we’re recruiting, they’re not looking at what Southern Miss was. They’re looking at the new coaching staff, the new players, the new resource opportunities and they are looking at the relationships they have with me and my staff. And they are saying this is a great option.’’

It’s a hard pill to swallow – but he’s not wrong. And before you go clutching your college football pearlsm remember that head coaches have to find a way to make this all work. They can’t do that without a school and administration willing to put in the time and money to create resources for student-athletes.

That’s why Huff chose Southern Miss.

“Our administration is world-class, they want to win, they want to do right, they don’t have hidden agendas and there is resource value here,” exclaimed Huff. “There’s an opportunity to create a separation between our peers and our competitors with our NIL resources. Moving forward it’s going to be more about how you are navigating resource opportunity and resource value in NIL and revenue sharing. Once you get a lane for that, you get good people in, you’re going to see an upward movement.”

Southern Miss partnered with To The Top Collective in 2021, which is now run by Peter Boehme, a former Southern Miss punter and the only full-time manager of an NIL collective in the Sun Belt. At last count, the collective has roughly 425 members with a budget near $1 million. 

Clearly, Huff’s got the resources part down. As for the relationships, well we might see a familiar name around the program more this season.

“When I first got the job, you get a list of people you talk to and I talked to Brett Farve and he said ‘no disrespect but it’s been tough watching Southern Miss lose to schools who didn’t even have a program when I played,’” shared Huff.

Farve, who revealed his Parkinson’s diagnosis last year, has also been embroiled in legal troubles which has caused him to observe his Golden Eagles from afar. But Huff indicated that might change in the future.

“He’s open to coming around, but obviously he’s got some things going on outside of Southern Miss,” explained Huff. “When I talked to him he was excited, he wants to be a part of it but he doesn’t want his personal affairs to shed a bad light on Southern Miss Football. So he tries to stay away out of respect. But he’s so appreciative of this University and his time here. He told me he will try to get around. I would be open to it because I do think it’s a benefit for our current locker room.”

Speaking of current locker rooms, Huff shared what he hopes Southern Miss Football will look like in the coming years.

“We’ve been able to do some really good recruiting, I feel really good about some of the guys we brought in but we’ve still got work to do,” said Huff. “When we get this thing rolling, hopefully people will be able to say Southern MIss Football is tough and disciplined. And as we continue to recruit at a high level, then it will be tough, disciplined and they win and play well.”

Those adjectives conjure up images of split dives and traps and single wings – is it possible we might see a fullback on the Golden Eagles roster this year?

“Nope, they bring back bad memories,” laughed Huff. “I walked on to the Hampton team as an undersized offensive lineman but my first play in a college game was at fullback. One play, missed a block, next week I was back at offensive line. It was probably the shortest lived position tenure in the history of college football. It still haunts me to this day, I have nightmares about it.”

You know what they say coach –  one person’s nightmare is another person’s Ernie Nevers.

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