The Flagship: Former Texas QB Todd Dodge talks Quinn Ewers, coaching career

Horns247 Podcasts: The Flagship Podcast

247Sports, Texas, Texas Longhorns, Texas Football, Texas Basketball, Texas athletics, Arch Manning,

Football, Sports

4.8 • 821 Ratings

🗓️ 24 January 2022

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this week's interview edition of The Flagship Podcast, we talk to former Texas quarterback and high school coaching legend Todd Dodge, fresh from his retirement after winning three straight state titles and 40 straight games to finish his career at Westlake.

Dodge was named the national high school coach of the year for 2021 after Westlake took down Denton Guyer for the 6A Division II state title - Dodge's seventh state title as a coach.

We talk to Dodge about where it all began for him - in Port Arthur as the son of a Methodist minister and a teacher and how "moving every four years" benefited Dodge later in life.

Dodge talks about becoming the first high school quarterback in Texas to throw for more than 3,000 yards in a season at Port Arthur Jefferson and how a state title game against the Permian Panthers haunted him for about 30 years.

At Texas from 1982-85, Dodge, who went 19-4 as a starting quarterback, talks about the one that got away - against Georgia - in 1984 and what it was like to be booed by 80,000 at DKR in pre-game warmups and then be cheered by the same 80,000 later in the game.

Dodge talks about his time at Southlake Carroll, where he won four state titles in five seasons (from 2002-06), going 79-1 during that span with the only loss a 16-15 defeat by Katy in the 2003 state title game.

But the highlight of his time at Southlake Carroll was coaching his 2006 team to a state title with his son, Riley, at quarterback.

Riley Dodge, now the head coach at Southlake Carroll, faced off against his dad and Austin Westlake for the state title in 2020, the last game now-Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers started before deciding to graduate high school early and enroll at Ohio State in 2021.

Dodge talks about Ewers and how Texas fans will need to be patient, because "it's never ideal to start a first-year quarterback."

Dodge discusses his special bond with Sam Ehlinger and Texas 2022 signee offensive lineman Conner Robertson of Westlake and why guys like Robertson are the kind of guys the Longhorns need to get back to being on top.

Dodge talks about what it would take for him to get back into coaching and so much more in a must-listen interview episode on The Flagship Podcast.

Transcript

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0:00.0	excited today to be joined on the flagship podcast interview by legendary and national high school
0:17.1	coach of the year what a way to end is his coaching time at Austin Westlake High School
0:24.9	on a 40-game winning streak. Three straight state titles. The one and only Todd Dodge. Oh,
0:34.1	and yes, he played quarterback at the University of Texas and is the pride of Port Arthur.
0:42.6	TD, how are you doing?
0:44.4	Chip, I'm doing great.
0:46.6	The last thing you said there, the pride of Port Arthur, I don't know that, but that's maybe the thing I'm most proud of.
0:54.1	Yeah, I mean, we can start there. I mean, we got so much to get Arthur. I don't know that, but that's maybe the thing I'm most proud of. Yeah, I mean, we can start there. I mean, we got so much to get into today, and I'm excited to talk about all of it.
1:00.7	But, you know, so many, you know, big time achievers have come from Port Arthur, from Janice Joplin to Jimmy Johnson. What is it about
1:14.7	Port Arthur, TD, that, you know, kind of creates that that hunger for success and ability to
1:22.8	achieve? Well, what it was for me is just a blue collar work ethic that is down there.
1:30.3	I mean, when you grow up, you know, everybody pretty much is in the same boat.
1:38.3	Your parents work for the refineries or a whole lot of them do, you know.
1:44.5	So there's, you know, down in Port Arthur, down in southeast Texas,
1:48.3	there's a tremendous love for the great game of high school football.
1:54.8	It is a tough, hard-nosed area.
1:58.3	You learn how to, if you're ever successful at anything, you learn how to not get full of
2:04.8	yourself.
2:05.3	And if you ever have adversity, you know how to pick yourself up.
2:09.3	And so I think that's some of the things that in the time that I was growing up down
2:14.1	there is that those are the things that I learned and took from there.
2:18.7	I know you mentioned your mom being 83 and she still knows who you are,
	...

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