Southlake Carroll (Texas) High School coach Riley Dodge is joining the SMU staff, he announced Wednesday. ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported Dodge will serve as the Mustangs’ tight ends coach and passing game coordinator. He’ll fill the hole on the staff left by Casey Woods, who took the Missouri State job earlier this month.<\/p>\n
Dodge played quarterback for Southlake Carroll under his father, Todd, leading the team to their fourth of four state championships in a 5-year run — a run that saw the Dragons go 79-1 with the loss coming by a single point in the 2003 state title game. Riley Dodge was the MaxPreps National Player of the Year in 2006.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Riley Dodge played at North Texas and McNeese State, then entered coaching as a graduate assistant under Kliff Kingsbury at Texas A&M and as an offensive quality control at Texas.<\/p>\n
He returned to Southlake in 2018 as a 29-year-old head coach, the youngest in Texas at the time. In eight seasons leading the Dragons, Dodge went 107-10 with two state championship appearances. His 2020 team, quarterbacked by Quinn Ewers, lost to his father Todd’s Austin Westlake, quarterbacked by Cade Klubnik, in one of the most memorable game in the history of high school football<\/a>. His 2024 team returned to the state game but was upset by Austin Vandegrift.\u00a0<\/p>\n Earlier this season, Dodge became the fastest coach in Texas high school history to 100 career wins.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dodge’s 2025 team was his best. The Dragons were undefeated and unchallenged before losing to DeSoto in the Class 6A Division II semifinals on Dec. 13. Here’s how it ended. For what it’s worth, DeSoto won the title game with ease last Saturday.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI am excited to share that I will be taking on a new opportunity at SMU. While it\u2019s bittersweet to leave a place that means so much to my family and me, I am eager to step into this next chapter under the leadership of Coach Rhett Lashlee,\u201d Dodge said in his post. \u201cNo matter where this journey takes me, I will always be a Dragon.\u201d<\/p>\n