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The story of how James and Jacquizz Rodgers, the best brother combo that football-rich Texas has produced in years, ended up 1,800 miles away from home started with a phone call.
Beam had been so impressed by Rodgers, who was then orally committed to Texas State, a Football Championship Subdivision school, that he invited Langsdorf to visit and watch Rodgers' highlight video. At the time, Oregon State didn’t actively recruit in Texas, but that would soon change.
After watching the video, Langsdorf took it back to Beavers coach Mike Riley, who was also amazed. Rodgers' team, Lamar Consolidated High School, was a run-first outfit that relied heavily on an underclassman tailback, but Rodgers stood out as a nearly 1,000-yard wide receiver and ball-hawking free safety with stunning speed.
Afterwards, Riley sat in disbelief before breaking the silence and asking Langsdorf, “OK, what’s wrong with this guy?”
“We liked him that much,” Riley says. “He had to be a bad student or a criminal.”
Rodgers wasn’t either, just an overlooked prospect.
Thus began a whirlwind recruitment that ended a few weeks later when he signed with the Beavers.
But more importantly, his arrival marked the start of what has become one of the best brother combos in the history of college football. Unbeknownst to Oregon State at first, the underclassman tailback on Rodgers’ team running for all those yards was his pint-sized little brother, Jacquizz.
“It was almost a fluke thing,” Riley says.
Jacquizz, a 5-foot-7, 191-pound junior tailback, enters this season as a Heisman Trophy candidate after rushing for 1,440 yards and 21 touchdowns to go along with 78 catches for 522 yards and a touchdown as a sophomore. James, a 5-foot-7, 188-pound senior wide receiver, is a preseason All-American pick by some after last season catching 91 passes for 1,034 yards and 9 touchdowns.
Pac-10 Conference coaches still can’t believe that the Rodgers brothers ended up in their league all the way from Texas.
“They’re a nightmare,” Washington coach Steve Sarkisian says.
Growing up in Richmond, Texas, a town of 13,404 that is about 35 miles southwest of Houston, the Rodgers brothers, who are separated in age by 13 1/2 months, always heard they were too small.
Back then though, they were more concerned about beating each other. Whether it was in video games or on opposing teams in basketball, they were so competitive that they almost always had to be separated to prevent fighting.
That made life tough for their mother, Tasha Williams, and maternal uncle, Rodney Williams, who raised them. Their father, James Rodgers Sr., was in out and of prison when they were children and is currently serving 25 years in Rosharon, Texas, for a drug conviction.
Before Rodney Williams became active in the brothers' lives during their adolescence, he had heard horror stories about them not listening, talking back and cussing out people.
“They were true to what they’d come from,” Williams says.
But they never misbehaved in front of Williams, who coached them in basketball. And as teammates on the court, they had an obvious chemistry.
“That’s when you saw exactly what they were capable of,” Williams says. “You saw the grief they gave everybody and how explosive they were together.”
The brothers eventually carried that over to football at Lamar Consolidated High. But because of his small size, James didn’t generate much interest among recruiters. Until Oregon State recruited him, Texas State was essentially his only option. Air Force had offered him a scholarship early, but stopped calling after he didn’t accept it.
James was initially frustrated that other players he thought were less talented than him were receiving scholarship offers. But eventually he let it go and pledged to himself, “Whatever team offers me and I go there, they’re going to be happy with me because I am a dedicated player and like working hard.”
“Everything happens for a reason,” James says.
But David Bailiff believed in James. Currently the coach at Rice, he was coaching Texas State when James orally committed to the FCS school.
And like Riley, he couldn’t believe what he saw when he first watched video of him. After watching it, he told an assistant coach, “Oh my God. Offer him. Get him in school.”
“He was one of the most electrifying football players I’ve ever seen,” Bailiff says.
Although almost every other team was leery of James’ slight stature, Bailiff wasn’t bothered by it at all.
After James committed to Texas State, Bailiff worried about being able to keep him. He had lost hidden jewels before — like the time Texas Tech snatched quarterback Kliff Kingsbury at the last minute.
“You just scratched your head that whole time and thought, ‘Please everybody stay away from him. Please everybody stay away from him,’” Bailiff says of James.
But Bailiff ended up leaving Texas State before James to take the job at Rice. Shortly thereafter, Oregon State swooped in and landed James.
With Jacquizz rushing for 8,245 yards and setting the Texas state record for touchdowns (136), he received more scholarship offers than his brother coming out of high school, but teams still had questions about his lack of size.
Most also figured he would follow his brother to Oregon State. But Jacquizz settled on the Beavers only after determining they were his best option to play as a freshman.
“We weren’t a package deal,” James says.
But after both achieved stardom in their freshman seasons in this lush town on the Willamette River, two time zones away from home, the pint-sized brothers are big. There are “Mr. Rodgers’ Neighborhood” T-shirts, life-size cutouts of them outside the stadium on game days, and Jacquizz has a popular radio segment called “Quiz Quizz.”
Of the two, James is more outgoing and serious, while Jacquizz is laid back and likes to joke around. They’re also nearly inseparable.
They now play video games against each other without fighting, shop together and don’t miss the reality television shows of Terrell Owens and Chad Ochocinco.
Their pride is a 60- to 70-pair collection of Air Jordan sneakers.
“We’re the same,” James says. “It’s easy to get things done because we both have the same mindset.”
So it was no surprise that they both wanted to play TCU when Riley called them into his office this past spring to discuss the possibility. He had promised both that he would try to get a game in Texas for them.
And while the brothers are eager about the homecoming, both insist they’re not motivated by trying to show those in Texas what they missed out on.
“I don’t feel disrespected,” Jacquizz says. “No lie.”
For Saturday’s game, the brothers have been scrambling to find tickets and expect to have more than 30 friends and family in attendance. Among those who will be there is a third Rodgers brother, 13-year-old Michael, who’s shown football promise and is already nearly as tall as his older siblings.
“He has moves,” James says.
Even now, Bailiff wonders what might have happened if Oregon State hadn’t discovered James. He believes the brothers likely would have ended up at Texas State.
“In the great state of Texas, no kid grows up dreaming to play at Oregon State,” Bailiff says.
Riley knows that as well. And because of the unusual way that the Rodgers ended up at Oregon State, he has since implemented a new rule for his coaching staff:
Always answer your phone.
