Relationships Are Everything for Savon Huggins
Andy Backstrom (@andybackstrom)Publisher
While Savon Huggins was the star running back at St. Peter’s Prep in New Jersey, he played against Aazaar Abdul-Rahim, who was coaching Friendship Collegiate Academy.
Then Huggins, the No. 58 overall Class of 2011 recruit, was recruited by Jeff Hafley at Rutgers. During the former four-star prospect’s days in Piscataway, Tem Lukabu and Steve Shimko, at one point or another, were both on staff.
Before he ever got to Boston College, Huggins had built relationships with the Eagles’ coaches. So when he was brought aboard as a recruiting advisor last spring and then promoted to running backs coach in late February, the transition wasn’t foreign.
“It’s really kind of coming back full circle,” Huggins said Tuesday.
Huggins’ career has been all about relationships: first as a player but more so as a coach.
He was the face of New Jersey high school football as a senior. Huggins rushed for 1,891 yards and 35 touchdowns, averaging a whopping 10.9 yards per carry. And that was despite only playing the first offensive series in six games. The year before that, he piled up 1,544 yards and 22 touchdowns.
Huggins reeled in offers from Notre Dame, USC, Georgia, Michigan, Miami, Florida, Auburn—the list goes on and on. Except, his playing career never panned out like he had hoped.
Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano, who he had signed to play for, moved on to the NFL in 2011. And, in three years with the Scarlet Knights, Huggins registered just 842 rushing yards and nine touchdowns on 261 carries. After missing the 2014 season with an injury, he transferred to Northern Iowa, where he finished his college career.
He earned a training camp tryout with the Green Bay Packers and tried his hand at the CFL yet didn’t stick in either league. Rather than dwelling on his shortcomings, Huggins used them to his advantage. Not only as a coach but also as a teacher.
He mentioned Tuesday that he’s still connected with a lot of the coaches that recruited him.
“I can't stress enough how important relationships are,” Huggins said. “Even with the players here. You don't care how much I know until you know how much I care about you as a person. And, if I can do that, and I can identify what's important to you and why you play this game, I think everything's just so much more fluid.”
Huggins helped with BC’s recruiting efforts last season, however, he also contributed to player development as the team’s assistant running backs coach.
Pat Garwo III, who emerged as the Eagles’ bell cow in 2021, noted how committed Huggins is to getting to know his players, including their goals and purposes for playing the game.
“I feel like his investment in us has just pushed us to another level,” Garwo said Thursday. “He sees himself in us. … And I feel like he just knows our whys and could get us past the hump that we have and knows our weaknesses and doesn’t stop until we get over that hump.”
Before arriving in Chestnut Hill, Huggins was in Amherst. He was supposed to be UMass’ running backs coach for the 2021 campaign but ended up leaving for BC in the preseason. Wind back the clock one more year, and Huggins was the wide receivers coach for Buffalo in 2020, a season in which the Bulls went 5-0 in the MAC and finished the year No. 25.
The most formative period of Huggins’ coaching career, though, came at the high school level.
He was on staff at Somerville High School in New Jersey for three years as a running backs, receivers and defensive backs coach. Then, after a fellowship with the Miami Dolphins, he had a one-year stay at his alma mater, St. Peter’s Prep, where he coached running backs. That season, the Marauders won the 2019 Group 4 State Championship.
“It was really invaluable,” Huggins said of his high school coaching experience. “As a high school coach, not everybody wants to play college football. So, for me, going back to the relationship component, you’ve got to identify what’s important to these young men in order to get them to play at a high level.”
You need a similar sense of empathy when recruiting high school players, Huggins explained.
“It's not about just getting that kid,” he said. “It's about building a relationship with the high school coach, the family, the academic counselors in the school, the guidance counselors, the people at the front desk.”
Huggins has taken what he learned at Somerville and St. Peter’s Prep with him to the collegiate ranks. He’s around heaps of talent at BC, where he believes Garwo will follow in the footsteps of AJ Dillon and Andre Williams to the NFL and where he is tasked with leading a Power Five position group before the age of 30.
But his mindset’s the same.
“I tell people all the time, ‘I'm just a high school coach coaching college football,’ he said. “I haven't changed.”
Huggins leads by example but also reflects on his own pitfalls and tries to help his players avoid the challenges that limited his career. He relates to players yet also holds them accountable. And he can wear both hats because of the foundation that has been built within the room.
“I'm never going to be anybody I'm not,” Huggins said.
“I'm a relationship builder. That's what I'm going to be.”
