PORTABLE — The Alabama football team’s new offensive line coach was hanging out in his Seattle backyard on the afternoon that the team battled through the Texas heat to defeat Texas A&M 26-20 the previous year. He bonded and hung out with players who would go on to become the best offensive line in college football.
Nor did the hot dog cart cause any harm.
On the occasion of UW’s idle day, Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer invited his offensive lineman to his home for a few hours of fun, some TV, and to create the kind of camaraderie that successful offensive lines enjoy. Scott Huff was brought to UA from his Washington staff. This is the story told by former Washington right tackle Roger Rosengarten, who remembered 19 of the Huskies’ biggest players showing up at the Huff house, including five starters weighing an average of 308 pounds.
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And Huff’s main draw, a hot dog cart with a vendor serving up custom-topped dogs all day, made Rosengarten smile when he arrived.
Reese’s Senior Bowl: “Me and all the O-linemen went absolutely berserk on these hot dogs,” Rosengarten remarked.
All 19 Husky players received an invitation, including walk-ons; if hot dogs were trees, they had to labour like beavers. Every Husky with a seat in the offensive line’s meeting room received an invitation. According to Rosengarten, he had twelve by himself.
He deadpanned, “I came with an empty stomach.”
Rosengarten wasn’t sure if that was the most or not, but the vendor would have gone through 228 franks if the other 18 Huskies had room for 12 as well. Here, let’s venture to guess that the nutritionist for the training staff was not invited. Oh no, lost in the mail.
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.
He said, “Everyone loved playing for him.” “But you also don’t want to fall below the standard that gets you on his bad side.”
Huff has now arrived to Alabama, where the offensive line from the previous season weighed almost thirty pounds more per guy than Washington’s. In Tuscaloosa, any song from the Huff Hot Dog Bash would sound great.
