PROVO, Utah — BYU head football coach Bronco Mendenhall today announced Aaron Roderick has been hired as an assistant coach.
“Aaron has excellent coaching experience and is a man of character and faith,” Mendenhall said. “He is a great recruiter, outstanding position coach, fantastic teacher, master strategist and tireless worker. It’s great to have Aaron back at BYU.”
A former Cougar wide receiver and graduate assistant coach, Roderick returns to Provo with 14 years of coaching experience, including the past eight seasons at the University of Utah where he worked as receivers coach on Kyle Whittingham’s staff. Roderick also served as Utah’s passing game coordinator in 2012 and the co-offensive coordinator in 2010.
Roderick has coached receivers, quarterbacks, running backs and linebackers during his career and also has more than four years of coordinator experience. In addition to being the passing game coordinator this past year and serving as the Utes’ co-offensive coordinator in 2010, he also called the plays for Utah during the last six games of the 2009 season and was the offensive coordinator, quarterbacks coach and recruiting coordinator at Southern Utah from 2003-04.
In 2010, Utah finished 23rd in the nation in scoring offense (33.1) with Roderick as the co-coordinator. Under Roderick’s direction, Southern Utah finished 21st in the nation in total offense in 2004, averaging 412.5 yards per game, while ranking 14th in the nation with 270.5 passing yards per game to set a new school passing record. In his first year as SUU's offensive coordinator, the Thunderbirds set school records for pass attempts and completions, and also produced several single-game top-10 performances.
Roderick has helped numerous players achieve great success under his tutelage. Among them he coached Utah school record holder David Reed, who led the Mountain West Conference in receiving yards per game (91.4) in 2009 and set Utah single-season records for receptions (81) and yards (1,188). A first-team all-conference selection in 2009, Reed now plays for the Baltimore Ravens, who drafted him in the fifth round.
Other Utah receivers to earn honors under Roderick include second-team All-Mountain West honorees Brent Casteel (2006), Freddie Brown (2008) and Jereme Brooks (2010). Brown was a seventh-round draft pick of Cincinnati. His receivers have also come up big in bowl games. Travis LaTendresse was the Offensive MVP of the 2005 Emerald Bowl, setting bowl records for receptions (16) and yards (214) in a win over Georgia Tech. In Utah's 2009 Sugar Bowl win over Alabama, Brown had 125 receiving yards.
During Roderick’s two seasons at Southern Utah, quarterback Casey Rehrer ranked sixth in Division I-AA in total offense, averaging 312.6 yards per game, and was 19th in pass efficiency. Roderick's SUU receivers featured first-team all-leaguer Jerome Eason and second-team all-conference member A.J. Smith, who finished fifth in the country in receptions per game (7.18 avg.).
Prior to his two seasons at SUU, Roderick coached the running backs at Snow College in 2002. He began his career as a graduate assistant at BYU, assisting with the linebackers in 1999 and the receivers in 2000 and 2001.
A native of Bountiful, Utah, Roderick was a three-sport all-state athlete at Bountiful High School prior to earning All-America honors at Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho, where he broke the school’s single-season punt and kick return records.
After two years at Ricks College from 1994-95, Roderick came to BYU in 1996, where he made the academic all-conference team and started as a receiver and returner in 1997 and 1998. After redshirting on BYU’s 14-1 Cotton Bowl team, he averaged 15.7 yards per catch for 393 receiving yards and four touchdowns, while also contributed 308 yards as punt returner for the Cougars. BYU went 29-11 in Roderick’s three seasons on the team.
Roderick graduated from BYU with a degree in sociology in 1998 before earning a master’s of sociology from his alma mater in 2002. He served a two-year mission in Bogota, Columbia for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is married to former BYU soccer player Laurel Simpson. They are the parents of two children, Rachel and Quin.
Position assignments will be announced once the entire coaching staff is finalized.