Charles Huff explains why spring is no longer the time to build a team in college football

Those familiar with Charles Huff likely weren't surprised to see him lead Marshall to a conference title and ten-wins in his fourth season with the Thundering Herd.

That success helped lead to a featured speaking spot at the AFCA convention back in January, where he enlightened everyone in attendance with his outside-the-box approach to leadership with this modern generation of athletes.

Yesterday, while at the podium talking about his start of spring ball at his new program at Southern Miss, Huff opened up about the second phase of their process, where they've adopted an alternative approach.

Asked about building the team this spring, Huff opened up after some brief reflection to share details on how their approach is different than what most other college football programs are doing right now.

"We're a little bit different. We're not into building the team yet. This first phase, the way we've talked about it with our guys, is this first phase we're into building the individual."

"We're not into building the team yet because the reality of it is some of these guys won't be here. That's just the reality of it. It's not a negative. It's like the NFL, there's free agency now. There are some guys on teams that are going to have to move on to other teams."

"Here, once we evaluate holistically, and I'm not just talking about whether he can run or can't run, but also he can't go to class every single day, he can't prepare for practice, he can't manage himself by showing up on time - or he's a great player that just doesn't fit in these schemes. That's the reality of it, there's still a shifting of who is going to be on the team."

"So in the first two phases, we're not focused on building a team, we're focused on building the individuals that will be on the team."

Huff goes on to share that process entails teaching every individual in the program what it is going to take to be a member of the team and when summer comes, that is when their focus will shift to starting to build the team.

Huff lays out what their first two phases, through the summer and the spring, entail for his program at Southern Miss.

"I don't think you can start to build a team without first teaching guys what it takes to be on the team, and you haven't taught guys how to prepare, you haven't taught guys how to play the game of football, and you haven't taught guys discipline or accountability. Because this is America, this is a free country, and if you decide you don't like discipline, you have the option to go somewhere else. So I'm not going to force you to do things to be on this team that you don't want to do."

"What we're trying to do is not blend a team right now, we're tyring to teach all of the individuals and how it looks like to be on this team, then we can start to blend it when we decide exactly who is going to be on the team."

Hear more from Huff in the clip.