Charles Huff, Marshall and a glimpse inside the coaching carousel’s most puzzling split

After leading Marshall to its first conference championship in 10 years, Charles Huff got the traditional Gatorade bath from his players, hoisted the Sun Belt trophy and even showed off a few dance moves in a postgame interview with ESPN. Spears, who was hired after Huff’s first season as coach in 2021, and Marshall president Brad Smith decided to push back on that convention after neither the school nor Huff could come to agreement on a contract extension in 2022, when the Thundering Herd went 9-4 including an upset of Notre Dame. “I’ve had a chance to follow his opportunities over the last 33 months.” Huff said his contract required him to report in writing to Spears and Marshall whenever he made any contact with another school about a job opening: “Anybody who wanted to even have a conversation with me, I had to let them know.” Huff believes this created a perception that he was constantly looking for jobs, but he said the reality was not the case. “Anyone that tells me and my family that I shouldn’t interview for those jobs when they’re going to quadruple my salary probably doesn’t understand college athletics,” Huff said. “What if instead of buying you out, we invested that money into the program and we bet that we could win and maybe it’d end up exactly where it did, a championship season.” For example, Marshall opened a training table for all of its athletic programs in 2023 and put more money toward Huff’s assistant coaches, actions that Huff said “I was appreciative of.” Still, Huff said the move to let him coach without a contract for the next season was unprecedented.