Texas hires Riley Dodge for offensive quality control position

Catching up with the Joneses.

It's the task that the Texas Longhorns have been efforting to accomplish for several months in terms of matching the growing personnel arms race around college football being spearheaded by the Alabama Crimson Tide.

They took another major step in that direction on Tuesday evening, as multiple sites reported that the 'Horns have hired former North Texas quarterback Riley Dodge to fill the position of offensive quality control assistant. Hookem.com broke the news behind their pay wall earlier in the day.

A former Texas commit in the 2008 class, Dodge ended up at North Texas with his father Todd, who had coached him at Southlake Carroll and took the Mean Green job during Riley's recruitment.

The Southlake Carroll product has a unique place in Texas history in that regard as the quarterback the 'Horns were going to take instead of Andrew Luck or Robert Griffin III as they went all in with Garrett Gilbert in the 2009 class, though the Texas coaches did technically tell Dodge that he was an athlete take.

Dodge's career at North Texas was derailed by injuries that began during his senior season in high school, when he suffered a broken clavicle, eventually resulting in his move to receiver until injuries pushed him back to quarterback. After his father was fired as the Mean Green head coach, Dodge went to McNeese State for a season, where he appeared in three games.

Last season, the 24-year-old Dodge was a graduate assistant at Texas A&M and was credited for keeping Southlake Carroll quarterback Kenny Hill in the fold as Hill considered decommitting late in the process and took several visits.

Dodge can provide some perspective on the Airraid offense employed at Texas A&M under head coach Kevin Sumlin and offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury, as well as perspective on his father's offense, a hurry-up, spread attack with an emphasis on a handful of quarterback runs every game and completing high-percentage passes, similar to the offense that Texas will be employing moving forward under co-offensive coordinator and playcaller Major Applewhite.

In that regard, Dodge is a perfect fit for what the Longhorns want -- someone with the offensive chops to make a difference as an offensive assistant, as well as the recruiting ability offensively that is a value add.

As far behind as Texas was just weeks ago in the personnel arms race, the decisions since head coach Mack Brown identified the major issues and decided on a path forward have essentially been beyond reproach.

Those incredible resources?

Yeah, they're starting to get leveraged now.