Not many head coaches spend their first conference media day envisioning a future in another league.
Charles Huff took that approach in St. Petersburg, FL, openly proclaiming his desire to see Memphis playing in a ‘power four conference’ (an unofficial term that often refers to the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, and SEC) within the next several years.
“I’m in the best situation possible,” Huff said. “I’m in a vehicle that has the resources, that has the platform, and has the opportunity to continue to grow.
Hopefully I’ll be standing here one more, two more, or three more years, then I’ll be standing in a power four conference with the same logo on with the same people, the same president, the same AD, and hopefully some of the same players, because I’m in a vehicle that can do that.”
Huff’s quote wasn’t the first time Memphis publicly lobbied to move conferences. Memphis aggressively pursued Big 12 membership in July 2025, reportedly offering an estimated $200 million over five years in attempt to gain admission. However, the Big 12 — which requires support from 12 of 16 university presidents to proceed with any expansion candidates — ultimately did not open its doors for a 17th member.
Although it occurred prior to his tenure, Huff doesn’t view that rejection as the end of the conversation. His long-term vision for what Memphis can be is a program is one of the main factors that drew him to campus in December.
“The city, the resources, the past success that has been had here in the football program the last four head coaches, and then the ability for us to be able to take the next step,” Huff said on the appeal of Memphis. “What that looks like is yet to be determined, but I think we can take the next step and get to a power four conference. I think we can take the next step and become a national powerhouse.”
Huff’s boldness wasn’t limited to conference realignment discussion. In his press conference at American media days, not only did he campaign for a future in another league, but he also referred to himself as the “portal king” and “Lane Kiffin of the group of five.”
Memphis is Huff’s third head coaching stop in three years, and he’s the only FBS head coach to lead three different programs in the last three seasons. Huff spent four years as the head coach of Marshall, claiming 10 wins and a Sun Belt championship in 2024. Despite the success, his contract was not renewed, so he left for a one-year stint at Southern Miss before arriving in Memphis. Three jobs in three years doesn’t faze the head coach, who compared his movement to working different positions at the same company.
“I don’t send my résumé into LinkedIn and people call me,” Huff said. “When you do well, you have opportunities, and the opportunities that I’ve been presented have made sense to me and my family. They’ve been opportunities to continue to move forward in this profession. People say, ‘you’ve moved a a lot.’ Well if I was working at Bank of America and went from three different levels up to management level in three years, they’d consider me a prodigy.”
Huff inherited a Southern Miss team fresh off a 1-11 showing and brought the Golden Eagles to seven wins in his lone campaign. But the former Sun Belt head coach understands the loftier expectations he will encounter in his new home, considering 7-6 would essentially be Memphis’ worst finish since 2013. Still, he’s ready to sell a fanbase that has become accustomed to consistent winning on his process — a process which immediately transformed Southern Miss from an FBS bottom feeder to a win away from the Sun Belt Championship Game.
“I think what you’re selling is a process that works,” Huff said. “That same 7-6 (Southern Miss) team only won one game the year before I got there. So if you told me I was going to get 700 percent or seven times improvement in anything, I think a lot of people would sign up for it. I think you’re buying a process. You’re not buying what we did last year. You’re buying a process that is application, not theory, so we know it works.”
Huff’s process differs from what you see in a typical college football facility. He opens every single team meeting with an in-depth discussion of academics. He also banned music at practices, once stating, “When the Navy SEALs get ready to go do a mission, they’re not listening to Lil Baby. When they’re training to go to war, which we’re training to go to war, we’re not listening to NBA YoungBoy,” per Jonah Dylan of The Commerical Appeal.
It’s an old-fashioned approach the players have learned to embrace, because of the authenticity of it all.
“It’s great being able to play under somebody who just does what he says,” guard Maarten Woudsma said. “He’s very trustworthy. He’s really real. He doesn’t sugarcoat anything. He just keeps everything 100.”
Another key element of his process involves surrounding himself with familiar personnel. Huff expedited his rebuild at Southern Miss by bringing a strong Marshall contingent to Hattiesburg, MS. Specifically, 20 players and three coordinators/position coaches made the trek from Marshall to Southern Miss alongside Huff. A similar formula was implemented this offseason, as 17 players and four coordinators/position coaches journeyed from Southern Miss to Memphis.
“It’s kind of a cheat code because they’re like the seniors,” Huff said about his Southern Miss transplants. “Ten years ago, you’d have a freshman class, junior class, senior class, and the seniors would tell everybody what to do. Then they would graduate and the juniors would tell everybody what to do. Well us bringing 19 guys that know what we do, that allows them to tell everybody else in the operation what we do. ‘This is how we practice. This is our standard. This is what we do.’ So it’s not just me driving the message. It’s players on the ground level that are driving the message and holding the standard, which to me, helps it develop faster.”
The former Southern Miss players understand their duty as the culture instillers, as they try to create camaraderie and synchronization within a Memphis roster that returns just one starter from 2025.
“Us Southern Miss guys are definitely the people that people look up to in order to do the right thing,” inside linebacker Mike Montgomery said. “With great power comes great responsibility. The things that you say and how you say it matter, and you have to think about that every single time you speak.”
However, the Southern Miss players aren’t a separate faction from the rest of the team. The former Golden Eagles were at the forefront of integrating a transfer laden football team into one entity known as the Memphis Tigers — just like Huff’s former Marshall players did at his previous stop.
“There’s a lot of Southern Miss guys,” said Woudsma, who transferred from Old Dominion. “They already had some bonds formed, but I wouldn’t say that made it any more difficult for anybody else to fit in or become bonded with them. They’ve done a really good job implementing other people and making sure that everybody feels connected. I feel like that’s very important because they already knew what the standard and the culture that Coach Huff set. So it made it really easy for other leaders and other people on the team to adopt that same belief.”
Continuity can be a blessing in college football, and it’s one feature Memphis severely lacks in 2026. However, the Tigers are in the same boat as many of their American peers. In similar fashion to Memphis, contenders Tulane and South Florida also saw their head coaches hired away by SEC programs in late November. Reigning conference runner-up North Texas saw its head coach Eric Morris leave for Oklahoma State and didn’t retain a single starter. Given all this movement, the “portal king” knows reloading through the transfer portal and having a plethora of newcomers buy into a culture is the key to success in the transient American Conference.
“It’s how fast can you reload?” Huff said. “And we, Memphis, tried to do things to retain and we’re working toward that. But how fast can you reload? That’s the world we live in now. I think all teams in this conference are experiencing it at some level, maybe not all 71 new guys like us, but they’re all experiencing it. Who manages it the best will have the most success.”
Huff has rarely stayed in one place for long, but he envisions a long-term future at Memphis — a future where the Tigers won’t have to deal with the modern instabilities of the American Conference. But Huff isn’t going to sit by the phone and wait for another conference to call. Instead, he believes winning football games and constructing a powerhouse in his current league will be the recipe to do that.
“We’re in position at Memphis to grow,” Huff said. “I think it makes sense for us to grow. It’s not gonna happen overnight, but you talk about what direction is the program going, I’d like to see that happen. I think we’re ready. I think we’re close. And there’s a lot that we on the field have to do to ensure that can happen. I think from a structural standpoint, we are set up to grow. That’s one of our goals long term as a university. In order for us to do that long term, we’ve got to handle our business short term from a football perspective.”
