How Nick Saban and Alabama football influenced first-year Marshall coach Charles Huff

NEW ORLEANS – Charles Huff has much more on his plate these days than he did while coaching running backs at Alabama, Mississippi State and Penn State.

It’s not just because he loaded up on Louisiana Creole cuisine while in the Big Easy.

Rather, the reason is his first year as coach at Marshall – whose 2021 season was rewarded with a New Orleans Bowl invitation to face the No. 17 Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns at the Superdome – has meant much more responsibility and decision-making.

The Cajuns (13-1) extended their win streak to 13 straight with a 36-21 win over the Thundering Herd on Saturday, but even after the loss Huff left New Orleans confident he can build something similar.

To tackle the task, Huff – who boosted his reputation recruiting and developing Penn State star running back Saquon Barkley, the 2018 NFL Draft’s No. 2 overall pick – intends to rely largely on lessons learned working as associate head coach and running backs coach under Nick Saban from 2019-20.

ON THEIR 50TH ANNIVERSARY: Nick and Terry Saban share their love story

RECRUITING: What Nick Saban said about Deion Sanders landing Travis Hunter

Yet one of the latest branches from the Saban tree also strives to be his own man, establishing early just how much he personally believes a diet rich in regularity produces a reliable product.

“You’ve got to figure out what you’re comfortable being every single day,” Huff said, “because the players will see through it quick if you’re up one day, down the next, ‘This is serious’ this week, ‘This is not serious’ this week.”

The Nick Saban effect

Saban’s influence on Huff is obvious to Marshall quarterback Grant Wells, who also started in 2020 under the fired Doc Holliday.

“We can definitely see that affect the way we go about things every day,” Wells said.

Huff, a Maryland native who played Hampton from 2001-05, also coached under James Franklin at Penn State and earlier as a quality control coach in 2011 at Vanderbilt, and under former Penn State offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead at Mississippi State in 2018.

But it’s Saban’s hand that seems to have hit him hardest.

“What I learned the most from Coach Saban was consistency in your routine,” Huff said.

“We try to do the same thing the same way every day, whether it’s a night game, day game, whether we’re playing a ranked opponent, whether we’re playing an opponent at another level.”

It sounds suspiciously similar to the approach taken by former Saban and Alabama receivers coach Billy Napier, who led the Cajuns to a Sun Belt Conference championship in his fourth season before leaving two weeks ago for a seven-year, $51.8 million job at Florida.

But that’s also what works best for Huff, who’s nothing if not uber consistent at a Marshall program that soon will leave Conference USA for the Sun Belt.

“The players laugh,” he said. “I wear the same color pants on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.

“I try to get to up at the same time on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. We try to set our schedule to where every day it’s the exact same. I think when you can create consistency in your routine, you can create consistency in your performance.”

Transforming Marshall

While Marshall’s 7-5 regular season had ups and downs – back-to-back wins to start, including one against Navy; a three-game losing streak followed by a four-game win streak; losses in two of its last three – the Thundering Herd’s approach to Group of Five football never wavered.

Much like Saban never does.

“We probably are more impressed not that he wins championships,” Huff said of Saban, who has seven national titles since the 2003 season, including one at LSU and six at Alabama, the last with Huff on staff, “but the consistency in excellence that that program has.

“So that’s what we’re trying to build, right? Different scale. We don’t have the size or the resources of an Alabama, but we can have the consistency in our routine. We can have the consistency in the way we prepare.

“Our players probably laugh at me because we are probably a little bit boring. But boring is good. Boring means you’re pretty consistent, which allows them to relieve some anxiety in day-to-day operations.”

And not just when deciding what color pants to wear.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Alabama football's Nick Saban influenced Marshall coach Charles Huff