How Alabama football OL coach Scott Huff reaches players with hot dogs | Goodbread
MOBILE — On the afternoon that last year's Alabama football team toiled in the Texas heat to knock off Texas A&M 26-20, it's new offensive line coach was hanging out in his Seattle backyard, cutting up and bonding with members of what would become the best offensive line in college football.
And the hot dog cart didn't hurt, either.
Scott Huff, who Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer brought to UA from his Washington staff, invited his offensive linemen to his home for a few hours of fun, some TV, and to build the kind of camaraderie that great offensive lines possess on the occasion of UW's idle date. This according to ex-Washington right tackle Roger Rosengarten, who recalled a parade of 19 of the Huskies' biggest players, including five starters who averaged 308 pounds when they descended on the Huff home.
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And when Rosengarten arrived, he couldn't help but smile at Huff's big attraction: a hot dog cart, complete with vendor, doling out custom-topped dogs all day.
"Me and all the O-linemen went absolutely berserk on these hot dogs," Rosengarten said at the Reese's Senior Bowl.
Every Husky with a seat in the offensive line's meeting room got an invitation; the party of 19 included walk-ons as well, and if hot dogs were trees, they got to work like beavers. Rosengarten estimates he had 12 by himself.
"I came with an empty stomach," he deadpanned.
Rosengarten couldn't say whether that was the most or not, but if the other 18 Huskies had room for 12 too, the vendor would've gone through 228 franks. Let's hazard a guess here that the training staff's nutritionist didn't get an invite. Lost in the mail, darn it.
Nobody's trying to say the hot dog feast is why Huff's linemen went on to win the Joe Moore Award as the best OL in the nation.
But nobody can prove it wasn't.
A key member of that 2023 Washington offensive line, All-Pac 12 center Parker Brailsford, has transferred to Alabama. Rosengarten (6-foot-6 and a hot dog short of 300 pounds) started 15 games at right tackle. He doesn't know if they'd have won the Moore Award were it not also for their passion about playing for Huff. But get-togethers like this one can be the bricks for that.
"Everyone loved playing for him," he said. "But you also don't want to fall below the standard that gets you on his bad side."
Meanwhile, Huff has arrived at Alabama, where last year's offensive line was heavier than Washington's by about 30 pounds per man. Any music from the Huff Hot Dog Bash would play just fine in Tuscaloosa.
"He'll have all those guys over. I can't wait to see his house in Tuscaloosa," Rosengarten said. "I hope I'll be invited too."
Hot dogs, beware.
Tuscaloosa News columnist Chase Goodbread is also the weekly co-host of Crimson Cover TV on WVUA-23. Reach him at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on Twitter @chasegoodbread.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: How Alabama football OL coach Scott Huff reaches players with hot dogs
