Introduction
Franklin Cullen "Pepper" Rodgers (born October 8, 1931) is a former American football player and coach. He was the head coach at the University of Kansas (1967–1970), University of California, Los Angeles (1971–1973), and the Georgia Institute of Technology (1974–1979), compiling a career college football record of 73–65–3 (.528).
Rodgers was also the head coach of the United States Football League's Memphis Showboats from 1984 to 1985 and of the Canadian Football League's Memphis Mad Dogs in 1995. He also served as the Washington Redskins director of football from 2001 to 2004. At 69, he was considered for the Redskins' head coaching position before Norv Turner's eventual firing during the 2000 season.
From Atlanta, Rodgers played college football at Georgia Tech under head coach Bobby Dodd, where he was a member of the Yellow Jackets' 1952 national championship team as a backup quarterback and placekicker. In his second year as a head coach, he led the Kansas Jayhawks to a share of the Big Eight Conference title in 1968, the program's most recent conference championship. They played in the Orange Bowl in Miami, but lost by a point to Penn State.
At UCLA in the Pac-8, Rodgers installed the wishbone offense and with junior college transfer quarterback Mark Harmon in 1972, the Bruins upset top-ranked and two-time defending champion Nebraska in the season opener, snapping the Huskers' 32-game unbeaten streak. UCLA finished 8–3 and fifteenth in the final AP rankings; in 1973 they were 9–2 and ended ranked twelfth. (Prior to the 1975 season, the Pac-8 and Big Ten conferences allowed only one postseason participant each, for the Rose Bowl.) He left after the 1973 season to lead his alma mater in Atlanta.
With the Memphis Showboats of the USFL, Rodgers was the first professional coach of hall of fame defensive end Reggie White.
Rodgers is the author of Fourth and Long Gone, a fictional book published in 1985 that is a bawdy roman à clef of his experiences as a college football coach and recruiter. He also wrote an autobiography: Pepper, written with Al Thomy. Rodgers graduated from Georgia Tech in 1955.
Coaching tree
Assistant coaches under Pepper Rodgers who became NCAA head coaches:
- Barry Wilson: Duke (1990–1993)
Head coaching record
| Year | Team | Overall | Conference | Standing | Bowl/playoffs | Coaches# | AP° | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kansas Jayhawks (Big Eight Conference) (1967–1970) | |||||||||
| 1967 | Kansas | 5–5 | 5–2 | T–2nd | |||||
| 1968 | Kansas | 9–2 | 6–1 | T–1st | L Orange | 6 | 7 | ||
| 1969 | Kansas | 1–9 | 0–7 | 8th | |||||
| 1970 | Kansas | 5–6 | 2–5 | T–6th | |||||
| Kansas: | 20–22 | 13–15 | |||||||
| UCLA Bruins (Pacific-8 Conference) (1971–1973) | |||||||||
| 1971 | UCLA | 2–7–1 | 1–4–1 | 8th | |||||
| 1972 | UCLA | 8–3 | 5–2 | 2nd | 17 | 15 | |||
| 1973 | UCLA | 9–2 | 6–1 | 2nd | 9 | 12 | |||
| UCLA: | 19–12–1 | 12–7–1 | |||||||
| Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (NCAA Division I / I-A independent) (1974–1979) | |||||||||
| 1974 | Georgia Tech | 6–5 | |||||||
| 1975 | Georgia Tech | 7–4 | |||||||
| 1976 | Georgia Tech | 4–6–1 | |||||||
| 1977 | Georgia Tech | 6–5 | |||||||
| 1978 | Georgia Tech | 7–5 | L Peach | ||||||
| 1979 | Georgia Tech | 4–6–1 | |||||||
| Georgia Tech: | 34–31–2 | ||||||||
| Total: | 73–65–3 | ||||||||
| #Rankings from final Coaches Poll. °Rankings from final AP Poll. | |||||||||