AUSTIN, Texas — There was once a play so perfect, you can't unsee it. So powerful, you can't untaste it. So potent, you can't unsmell it.
That's because the last time the Westlake and Southlake Carroll football programs met in a state championship game, there were a lot more than touchdown passes that were being hurled.
Todd Dodge, the current coach of Westlake and the Southlake coach at the time, remembers it well.
“It’s the only time that Westlake got in this particular coverage," he said. "It was zero coverage. And I checked to the play that we would always check to and that was 61 smash, backside pine.”
It was the fourth quarter of the 2006 5A state championship game. Westlake and Southlake were tied, 29-29. Dodge's son, Riley, was under center for Southlake Carroll.
“The week of that game he had had a little sickness,” the elder Dodge recalled.
One second, Riley was throwing up. The next, he was throwing up a touchdown pass to give Southlake Carroll a lead it wouldn't relinquish.
The broadcast team was at a loss for words.
“Let me tell you, if you watch that play from start to finish, that was a very, very … great exhibit of just the toughness of Riley Dodge,” they said.
But Riley's teammates weren't surprised.
Running back Tre Newton successfully dodged the vomit from Dodge, in part because he knew it was coming.
“You have some guys on the team that just throw up. Some guys have to use the restroom, some guys have to throw up,” Newton said.
“Those two are standing beside each other, Riley throws up, wipes his hand on his towel. Tre’s sitting next to him and you can just see Tre just shaking his head like, ‘That’s Riley,’” Dodge said.
So, as Westlake and Southlake Carroll prepare for Saturday's state championship rematch, let us never forget the time Riley Dodge puked his guts out, then showed guts standing in the pocket and delivering a touchdown strike.
“He got sick, then made the Westlake defenders sick,” the broadcast team said.
“Riley tried to kind of play that off for a long time. He was kind of embarrassed by it," Dodge said. "I said, 'Son that's not anything to be embarrassed about, that’s going to go down in history as one of the neatest plays or best plays there ever was.'”
