Aaron Philo Doesn’t Know It, But He’s The Newest Yellow Jacket In Orange And Blue

Faulkner knows Philo well. He watched him throw footballs all over Georgia in high school, then coached him at Georgia Tech. He knows the arm, the instincts and the competitive wiring.

By Buddy Martin

GatorBaitMedia.com

“I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech, and a hell of an engineer. 

A hell of a, hell of a, hell of a, hell of a, hell of an engineer.”

They’ve been singing that one on the Flats since 1911. Every so often, though, a Ramblin’ Wreck rambles further than Atlanta — and for most of the last century, he was still in the same conference. 

Georgia Tech was a charter member of the SEC in 1932 and stayed there until Bobby Dodd yanked the Jackets out on Jan. 24, 1964.

The official reason was the old 140 Rule on scholarship limits. The unofficial reason wore crimson. Two years earlier, Alabama’s Darwin Holt had planted a forearm under the chin of Tech captain Chick Graning and left him unconscious with a fractured skull, a broken nose and a mouthful of former teeth. Legend has it Bear Bryant wouldn’t let Holt hit his own teammates in practice. That had as much to do with the divorce as any rule book.

By the time Aaron Philo takes his first meaningful snap for Florida this fall, he’ll be walking a path older than most of the people in the world folks, even ancient artifacts like me in the press box. 

The good news is that he was brought to UF by a mentor from — Tah Dah! — The Flats in Varsity Grill country.

There are two kinds of quarterbacks in this world.

Those who throw the football through the open window.

And those who stand around admiring the curtains. Buster Faulkner prefers the first kind.

Florida’s offensive coordinator doesn’t want Aaron Philo operating the offense like a nervous driver looking for a parking spot at Publix. See it. Trust it. Let it fly.

“He has a unique ability to cut it loose,” Faulkner said. “That’s a trait you want all your quarterbacks to have.”

Faulkner knows Philo well. He watched him throw footballs all over Georgia in high school, then coached him at Georgia Tech. He knows the arm, the instincts and the competitive wiring.

Coach Bobby Dodd Sr.

The Georgia Tech transfer — named QB1 by Jon Sumrall last week and set to debut against FAU on Saturday night — is only the latest name in a strange, sturdy tradition. Yellow Jackets have been wearing orange and blue for 66 years.

Some played the position at Florida. Some coached it. One coached the greatest to ever do either. The through-line runs straight back to Bobby Dodd.

When Ray Graves Emptied The Flats

The pipeline opened in 1960, and it opened wide.

Florida hired Ray Graves away from Tech, where he’d spent 11 seasons as Dodd’s defensive coordinator. Graves promised Gainesville something the old regime never had: An offense that wouldn’t punt on third down. Yes, third down. That had become a Bob Woodruff trademark,  which tells you everything you need to know about Florida football before Graves arrived.

Graves didn’t come alone. He brought a 28-year-old assistant named Franklin Cullen Rodgers — the kid everybody called “Pepper” — who had quarterbacked Georgia Tech’s 12–0 national championship team in 1952.

And they brought Bobby Jr.

Bobby Dodd Jr. had three SEC scholarship offers. None came from his old man. Both Dodds agreed it was wiser for the boy not to play for the father. There’s a nice symmetry in that: Bobby Sr. had been an All-American quarterback at Tennessee before he ever coached at Tech, and now his son was going to play the same position, for a rival SEC school, under two men who used to work for him.

The 1960 Florida–Tech game is the one they still tell in Gainesville. As sophomore Bobby Jr. rotated in behind Larry Libertore, took a sack, then fired a 32-yard strike to his fullback. He fumbled once, then ran the ball to the two-yard line with 30 seconds left. Florida won 18-17 on a brand new gimmick called the two-point conversion. For one afternoon, the son had beaten the father — in a stadium that suddenly felt like Atlanta South.

The Coach Who Groomed Spurrier

Pepper as a Yellow Jacket (Georgia Tech Photo)

Pepper stayed in Gainesville as OC through 1964, later became Tech’s head coach, and eventually got fired there, because Atlanta is Atlanta. What he did with his quarterbacks matters more than any bowl trophy he ever hoisted.

In 1964, a sophomore from Johnson City, Tennessee took over the huddle. 

Steve Spurrier’s quarterbacks coach was Pepper Rodgers. As Furman Bisher told it for years, Pepper had a gift: He could explain what he wanted a quarterback to do in the quarterback’s own language.

“I owe my coaching career to Coach Pepper Rodgers,” Spurrier said after Rodgers died in 2020 at 88.

Chew on that lineage a minute. The 1952 Tech quarterback teaches the 1966 Florida Heisman winner how to read a defense. Spurrier comes home to Gainesville in 1990 and builds the Fun And Gun. Every Gator quarterback from Shane Matthews to Danny Wuerffel to Rex Grossman to Tim Tebow owes a little something to a Yellow Jacket,

Which Brings Us To Aaron Philo

Buster Faulkner, Georgia Tech’s offensive coordinator the last three seasons, is now Sumrall’s OC in Gainesville. Faulkner brought Philo with him — Haynes King’s backup at Tech the last two years, now the Gators’ starter with three years of eligibility.

The transfer portal didn’t exist when Bobby Dodd Jr. drove down U.S. 441 with a duffel bag. But the pattern is the pattern. A Georgia Tech quarterback, following a former Georgia Tech assistant, arriving in Gainesville with a job to do.

Since Tebow rode off toward Heisman immortality, Florida has handed the football to 19 different starting quarterbacks. That’s not a rotation. That’s a receiving line.

Philo came to Florida because his position coach did. Simple as that. And yet, without meaning to, he’s become the newest link in a chain that runs from Bobby Dodd’s sideline through Ray Graves’s Sugar Bowls through Pepper Rodgers’s chalkboard through Steve Spurrier’s Heisman ballot straight to a locker with his name over it.

Sixty-six years after Bobby Dodd Jr. threw that 32-yard strike against his own father’s team, Aaron Philo will jog out of the tunnel at Ben Hill Griffin wearing orange and blue. He almost certainly doesn’t know any of this.

Somewhere, Pepper Rodgers is grinning.