New Southern Miss football coach Charles Huff will tackle a massive rebuilding job. (Southern Miss athletics)

Charles Huff will be the first Black head football coach at Southern Miss, but there’s another “first” for Huff that’s more impressive, if not more meaningful.

Believe it or not, Huff is the first sitting head coach ever hired as the head coach at Southern Miss. That’s amazing when you consider that Reed Green, Thad “Pie” Vann, P.W. Underwood, Bobby Collins, Jim Carmody and Jeff Bower are all former Southern Miss coaches successful enough to have been inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame. And all were assistant coaches when they were hired at USM.

That’s just one reason why Jeremy McClain, the athletic director, and Joe Paul, the president, might be found taking a victory lap around the Hattiesburg campus this week. The Golden Eagles not only hired a proven head coach, but they hired the coach who just won the championship of the Sun Belt Conference, the league in which Southern Miss resides and where the Eagles finished the 2024 season in last place.

Huff, in his fourth year as the Marshall head coach, led the Thundering Herd to a 10-3 record and a 31-3 championship victory over Louisiana this past Saturday night. Huff brought his Thundering Herd to Hattiesburg a month ago and left town with a 37-3 victory.

There are more reasons why this looks like a slam-dunk hire. Among those:

Huff, at 41, has worked for both James Franklin at Penn State and Nick Saban at Alabama, where he was the associate head coach as well as running backs coach.
In between those two stops, he worked a year (2018 season) as assistant head coach and running backs coach for Joe Moorhead at Mississippi State. So he is familiar with the Magnolia State’s football landscape and has recruited extensively here (both at State and Alabama). At State, Huff was the run game coordinator, and State finished second in the SEC in rushing with 223 yards per game. Moorhead sings Huff’s praises, and we’ll get to that.
Huff’s reputation is that of a relentless and successful recruiter. At Penn State, he recruited and helped develop Saquon Barkley, a consensus All American and now an NFL standout. He recruited several four- and five-star athletes at both Penn State and Bama, but also has shown the ability to evaluate and develop lesser recruited players at Marshall – and before that Central Michigan.

Moorhead, now the coach at Akron, and Huff first worked together on Franklin’s Penn State staff. Moorhead was the offensive coordinator, Huff the running backs coach and special teams coordinator. Moorhead knew then that when he got a head coach’s job, he would try to hire Huff. And he did at State.

Joe Moorhead Credit: Rogelio V. Solis/AP photo

“He checked all the boxes,” Moorhead said. “He’s extremely intelligent and organized. He’s a hard worker with great people skills. He understands the game of football in all its phases.

Moorhead was not asked about the following, but volunteered it. “Charles’s short time with us at State will help him at Southern Miss,” Moorhead said. “He understands the landscape there. He knows how important high school football is in Mississippi. He also knows that while there are many highly recruited players in that state, there are many really good players that fly under the radar who can be developed and become outstanding Division I football players. Southern Miss has a lot of tradition of getting those kinds of players and winning with them. I am sure that’s part of what attracted Charles to the job.”

For the record, State finished 8-5 and played in the Jan. 1 Outback Bowl in Huff’s one season (2018) there. Running backs Kylin Hill and Aeris Nelson both averaged more than six yards per carry. Bracky Brett was the associate athletic director at State at the time and remembers being highly impressed with Huff. “It wasn’t a matter of if Charles was going to ba head football coach and a successful one at some point; it was a matter of when,” Brett said. “You could just tell.”

Saban hired Huff away from State, and Greg Byrne, formerly State’s athletic director, was the Alabama athletic director during Huff’s two seasons there. The Crimson Tide won 24 games, lost two and won the 2020 national championship., finishing undefeated. Said Byrne of Huff, “He is hard working, very driven and cares about his kids. He’s organized and he has a plan.”

Huff’s four Marshall teams all went to bowl games. His 2022 team knocked off Notre Dame 26-21 at South Bend. His 2023 team defeated Virginia Tech 24-17. His first Southern Miss team will play host to Mississippi State on Aug. 30, 2025. All indications are that the Golden Eagles’ coaching staff and roster will undergo an unprecedented overhaul between now and then.

Huff has all the credentials. He has done it before, but, clearly, he has never faced a reclamation project like the one he faces now. He has a lot of impressive lines on his coaching resume. If he succeeds in turning around Southern Miss, it would be his most impressive coaching feat yet.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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At Southern Miss, the Huff hire looks good from every angle

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