A look at Alabama's revamped coaching staff: Offensive assistants

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Alabama’s carousel of coaches continued this offseason as the Crimson Tide brought in seven new assistants. In case you forgot, here’s a breakdown of the 10-man-staff and its responsibilities.

Offense

— Steve Sarkisian, offensive coordinator/quarterbacks

— Charles Huff, running backs

— Holman Wiggins, wide receivers

— Kyle Flood, offensive line

— Jeff Banks, tight ends/special teams

Defense

— Pete Golding, defensive coordinator/inside linebackers

— Brian Baker, defensive line

— Sal Sunseri, outside linebackers

— Karl Scott, cornerbacks

— Charles Kelly, safeties

After taking the week off for spring break, Alabama will return to the practice field Monday. Before then, BamaInsider is breaking down the Crimson Tide’s new staff by looking at each assistant and his biggest question mark heading into the spring. Thursday, we began our series by looking at Sarkisian and Golding. Today we continue by examining the rest of the offensive assistants.

Huff was Joe Moorhead’s first hire after taking the head coaching job at Mississippi State in December of 2017. That decision was instantly rewarded as Huff helped the Bulldogs land a top 25 class before leading a running game that ranked No. 20 in the nation averaging 223.62 yards per game last season.

Huff, 35, is quickly becoming one of the hottest young names in coaching, and for good reason. Before spending the past year as Mississippi State’s run-game coordinator and running backs coach, he served as Penn State’s special teams coordinator/running backs coach from 2013-17 where he helped developed Pro Bowl running back Saquon Barkley. No stranger to dealing with talent, Huff also spent the 2012 season with the Buffalo Bills where he helped C.J. Spiller to his lone Pro Bowl season as the running back rushed for 1,244 yards and six touchdowns while averaging 6.0 yards per carry. Now, he’s joining an Alabama offense that has seen eight running backs drafted in the past 10 years — not including Josh Jacobs and Damien Harris, who are projected to be selected in the early rounds of this year’s draft.

“They’ll be getting a great coach on and off the field,” former Mississippi State offensive lineman Elgton Jenkins said at the Senior Bowl. “He’s good at coaching the running backs. He’s good off the field helping people with different problems in life and stuff.”

Biggest issue this spring: With the departures of Harris and Jacobs, Alabama loses a combined 1,659 yards and 20 touchdowns on the ground along with another 451 yards and three more scores through the air. However, Huff has plenty of talent to replace the duo in five-stars Najee Harris and Trey Sanders as well Brian Robinson, Jerome Ford and Keilan Robinson.

This spring will be an interesting one for Huff as he looks to continue the balancing act of spreading carries across the unit. Sanders, the No. 1 running back in the 2019 class, won’t arrive until the summer but announced after signing with Alabama that he expects to win the Heisman during his freshman season. While there’s plenty of talent to develop inside Alabama’s running backs room, Huff’s biggest chore might be managing egos.

Biggest recruiting area: Washington D.C., Maryland, Virginia

Alabama lost a young, dynamic receivers coach this offseason as Josh Gattis left to become the offensive coordinator at Michigan. The Crimson Tide looks to be bringing in that same energy with the hiring of Wiggins.

The Los Angeles native comes to Tuscaloosa after coaching receivers at Virginia Tech the past three seasons. Over that span, he helped coach the Hokies’ top two all-time leading receivers in Cam Phillips and Isaiah Ford while leading Virginia Tech to three of its top four seasons in school history in terms of receiving yards. Wiggins also spent four seasons at Memphis, helping the Tigers rank No. 18 in passing offense (307.5 yards per game), No. 19 in total offense (486.9 ypg) and No. 11 in scoring offense (40.2 points per game) in 2015.

Biggest issue this spring: No assistant seemingly has it easier than Wiggins as Alabama returns its top four wide receivers from last season, including Biletnikoff winner Jerry Jeudy. The Crimson Tide has the nation’s top foursome in Jeudy, Henry Ruggs III, DeVonta Smith and Jaylen Waddle — a bunch that combined for 3,597 yards and 38 touchdowns last season. The challenge for Wiggins this spring comes in building depth around that core.

Redshirt sophomore Tyrell Shavers and redshirt freshman Xavier Williams are both expected to step into bigger roles this season, but neither has recorded their first college reception. Wiggins' ability to develop that duo will be instrumental not only this season but in years to come as Alabama figures to lose at least two receivers in next year’s draft.

Biggest recruiting area: Northern Alabama, California

Sarkisian won’t be the only member of last year’s Atlanta Falcons coaching staff to join Alabama this season. Flood joins the Crimson Tide after two years as the Falcons assistant offensive line coach. In 2017, Flood helped offensive line coach Chris Morgan produce a unit that ranked tied for No. 3 in the NFL, surrendering just 24 sacks. However, this past season the Falcons struggled up front, giving up 42 sacks while averaging just 98.3 yards per game on the ground.

Flood is best known for the four years he spent as the head coach at Rutgers from 2012-15. He was named Big East Coach of the Year in 2012 after he helped the Scarlet Knights earn a share of the conference title, marking the first championship in program history. He also became the first head coach in Rutgers history to lead the program to three bowl games in his first three years.

Flood’s success comes with a cloud of controversy as he was suspended for three games during the 2015 season for improper contact with a university faculty member after he sent an email trying to learn the academic status of a player who was known to be in danger of being ruled academically ineligible. He was then handed a one-year show-cause penalty in 2017 after the NCAA determined Rutgers “failed to ensure that the football student-ambassadors’ recruiting activities were permissible” and “failed to follow its established drug-testing policy with respect to 32 football student-athletes” from 2011-12 to 2015-16.

Biggest issue this spring: The spring is generally a time of experimenting across the offensive line, and this year should be no different. Alabama loses three starters in center Ross Pierschbacher, left tackle Jonah Williams and left guard Lester Cotton. However, the Crimson Tide still returns four players with starting experience in Jedrick Wills Jr., Alex Leatherwood, Deonte Brown and Matt Womack.

Flood’s challenge during camp will be piecing together the right puzzle to ensure that his five best offensive linemen are out on the field. During Alabama’s opening practice, we saw Leatherwood make the switch to left tackle while Womack replaced him at right guard. The versatility of those two should help Flood shift through several possibilities up front. Another challenge the first-year assistant faces is dealing with Brown’s four-game suspension to start the season.

Biggest recruiting area: New Jersey

Banks is the only assistant to keep his exact title from last year. Still, he’ll face quite the challenge as he is tasked with managing a thin tight ends unit as well as a group of specialists who struggled mightily last season.

Despite Alabama’s many flaws in the kicking game, Banks was awarded Football Scoop’s Special Teams Coordinator of the Year. While the Crimson Tide finished tied for No. 120 in the nation in extra points (90.2 percent) and No. 128 in punting (35.76 yards per attempt), it ranked No. 12 in punt return average (14.71 yards) and tied for No. 19 in kick return average (23.77).

Banks was also highly influential in tight end Irv Smith Jr.’s breakout season as the junior tallied 44 receptions for 710 yards and seven touchdowns.

Biggest issue this spring: It would be easy to point to special teams where Alabama currently faces several uncertainties. However, Banks’ biggest test this spring will be creating depth on a tight end unit that lost both of its starters in Smith and Hale Hentges. Those two departures are coupled with Kedrick James’ four-game suspension to start the season.

Things are so dire that Alabama is now experimenting by moving redshirt freshman outside linebacker Cameron Latu to tight end this spring. Earlier this year, head coach Nick Saban hinted that the Crimson Tide might bring in a graduate transfer at the position, but at this point nothing is certain.

“We do a lot of experimenting in spring to see if there is a guy at a position that might have a better opportunity to contribute at another position,” Saban said last week. “Obviously losing Hale and Irv, we've got some experience issues at tight end and also some depth issues. Having another guy suspended for four games next year at that position, I mean, you're taking three out of the first four guys, so we need to get some people there.”

Biggest recruiting area: Houston, Central Alabama

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