Text message received this morning from Todd Dodge said son Riley had transferred to McNeese State, as reported by various outlets around the same time. I don't have the inside story yet as to why McNeese over Stephen F. Austin or Lamar or some other Southland/FCS program, but best guess is it had something to do with the degree of need the Cowboys had for a QB. McNeese went 6-5 last season and is looking to challenge SFA for next season's Southland title. It'll be tough to knock off the Lumberjacks, an FCS playoff team in 2010, but Dodge must figure heavily in the mix if he's headed to Lake Charles.
Todd Dodge had a one-word answer about his own status -- "yes" -- when asked if he was close to landing somewhere as an assistant coach. That should shake out in a day or so, presumably, when either Tulsa, Pitt or some other program he has close ties to gets its coaching and/or staff situation settled. Dodge looked as if he was headed to Tulsa this week after Clemson announced it had hired Tulsa OC Chad Morris. It seemed likely at that point Tulsa coach Todd Graham was looking closely at a co-OC setup, with Dodge coming in as a quarterbacks coach.
Then Pitt reached out and hired Graham as its third head coach in a month, following Dave Wannstedt's forced resignation and the hiring/firing of Michael Haywood, who was introduced as Pitt's coach on Dec. 16 and then dumped after being charged with domestic battery.
No word on whether Dodge is Tulsa- or Pitt-bound. It's kind of a mess, since Morris has reportedly interviewed for the Tulsa HC job since officially leaving there to take the Clemson OC job. Arkansas OC Garrick McGee has surfaced as a candidate to return to TU as HC. At least one Graham assistant who remains at TU, Bill Blankenship, is a reported candidate and has yet to join Graham at Pitt.
If Morris is really talking to Tulsa, he's doing so out of some kind of courtesy, because the Clemson Rivals site reports he's been busy touching base with committed Tigers prospects and getting settled into his new digs there. The Tulsa Rivals site says he's a candidate for that job, so who really knows what's going on there.
As for Dodge, he has close ties to Morris and Graham going back to their days as successful Texas high school coaches. Graham and Dodge both interviewed for the Rice job some years ago, and Graham wanted to bring Dodge onto the staff there before he bolted for Tulsa after one season.
According to a source, Dodge may have been in some discussion with Arizona State to coach quarterbacks there, but it's uncertain if anything progressed. Noel Mazzone is ASU's offensive coordinator and coaches the quarterbacks, as he has at several stops in his career including TCU.
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