Michael Huff 2025 NFF COLLEGE FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME CLASS

michael huff

By Matt Fortuna

Michael Huff played a starring role in perhaps the best college football game of the 21st Century. But let's talk about a different Rose Bowl for a moment.

Before Texas dethroned USC in a national title game for the ages, the Longhorns beat Michigan in the Granddaddy Of Them All. Huff finished second on the team with eight tackles. And the win was especially significant for Huff, the son of Michigan natives whose Wolverines fandom was so deep that their son grew up a huge Charles Woodson fan.

"I grew up watching Michigan, and my mom and dad were at the game, and they were kind of rooting for their son, but in the back of their mind they wanted Michigan to win a little bit," Huff said, laughing. "But it was just special. Just the story, the tradition. Both programs are amazing, and I grew up watching them. So it was definitely a big game. And I'm glad we won."

Huff can laugh about that now. There's no mistaking which color he bleeds. The Irving, Texas native has now made the NFF College Football Hall of Fame, becoming the 22nd former Longhorns player to enter the Hall.

That memorable 2005 season echoes in Texas history forever; Huff won the Jim Thorpe Award as the nation's best defensive back, and he was named Defensive MVP of that forever Rose Bowl against the Trojans, which doubled as the 2005-06 BCS Championship Game. But the seeds for campaigns like that senior year were planted much earlier.

Huff started 50 of 51 games for Texas. He earned All-Big 12 honors in both football and in track and field, a sport in which he qualified for the NCAA regional meet in the 100 meters. The do-it-all defender made his presence felt all over the field early and often, as he holds the school single season and career record for pick-sixes, recording two apiece in 2002 and 2003. He had a school-record five total defensive touchdowns for his career. None of this, Huff said, would have been possible without defensive backs coach Duane Akina.

"Just from the moment I got there as a redshirt freshman, the year I was redshirting, wasn't even playing, he would take me to the side and we'd do extra film work and just do extra little things," Huff said. "I don't know what it was, but he saw something in me. Even when I came in, I was a skinny track guy who didn't want to hit anybody. He told me if I ever wanted to play this game at an elite level, then I'm going to have to get the physical side of the game and want to hit, want to tackle and do all those things.

"So, it was just one of those things that he just poured into me and didn't give up on me, didn't quit on me. He saw something in me and he was on me my whole career in Texas, and I owe him everything."

Huff came up with the pivotal tackle on fourth-and-2 against USC to get the ball back, leading to a 41-38 win. He had 12 tackles, one tackle for loss and one fumble recovery that night, as Texas clinched its first national title in 35 years. Widely regarded as one of the greatest games of all time, Huff couldn't truly appreciate all that he and his teammates had accomplished until the aftermath of that contest.

"I can be randomly in another city or randomly in the Bahamas or somewhere, and there will be Texas fans coming up to me and congratulating us on the national championship and telling us how much it meant to them," Huff said. "And just seeing some of our players now, like Michael Taaffe, I think he was 3 or 4 at that time, and his mom and dad took him to the game. And he just remembers watching the game and seeing us play. So just all those little things that show you what it means to the state of Texas, to Austin and really to everybody."

All of that may explain why Huff returned to Austin, Texas after eight NFL seasons, as he is now the Longhorns' assistant director of player development. That 2005 Texas team is never far from the minds of 'Horns fans everywhere - and those players are never far from each other, either.

"A lot of us still live here," Huff said. "I'm with Derrick Johnson all the time. He's at practice all the time. And then Brian Orakpo, Jamaal Charles, Michael Griffin, there's a bunch of guys that still live in Austin and we all go to lunch once a week, just to get together to talk about the old days."