Ann Rodriguez believes her son Jacob is “driven and quiet.” She believes her daughter-in-law Emma is “driven and loud.”
The result is this: Jacob Rodriguez, a senior linebacker at Texas Tech, navigated an unexpected journey and a position change to become one of college football’s premier defensive players. Emma Rodriguez, a U.S. Army helicopter pilot, Jacob’s wife and long-distance relationship partner of six years, now pushes his Heisman Trophy campaign on social media.
“I think she’s the coolest,” Rodriguez told The Dallas Morning News. “I don’t get on Instagram or Twitter much, but she’ll call me and tell me what she said, and I’m like, ‘You don’t have to put that out there.’ She loves it.”
Emma Rodriguez is stationed in Fort Riley, Kan. She clarified that she didn’t nominate her husband for the prestigious award’s fan vote but is thankful for whoever did. She also won’t apologize for the barrage of praise she spreads on her timeline daily.
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“I think he’s the greatest person ever,” Emma said, “and I think everybody should know him.”
They do now.
Rodriguez, a Wichita Falls native, captains a No. 9 Texas Tech (8-1, 5-1 Big 12) defense that has changed the historic narrative of what the program is known for. He’s a Butkus Award semifinalist, the fourth-highest graded defender nationwide per Pro Football Focus, a potential NFL draftee and can help certify Texas Tech’s College Football Playoff case vs. No. 8 BYU at Lubbock’s Jones AT&T Stadium on Saturday.
His family and coaches credit his natural athletic abilities, the determination to survive a position change and an innate leadership ability that now shines for one of college football’s newest powerhouses.
He credits his wife.
“Dude, she’s the best,” Rodriguez said. “I love her with my whole heart. I wouldn’t be the person I am without her.”
Texas Tech linebacker Jacob Rodriguez (center) hugs his wife Emma Rodriguez surrounded by friends and family.
Emma Rodriguez / Courtesy: Emma Rodriguez
‘Teach me how to throw a football’
Emma Rodriguez admittedly doesn’t remember her first alleged interaction with Jacob — which he claims was in the school chess club shortly after her family moved to Wichita Falls — but she can undoubtedly recall their first genuine connection.
The two attended First Baptist Church of Wichita Falls and were both members of the ministry’s Oneighty youth group. They were at summer camp — the organization’s “Beach Week,” specifically — after Emma’s junior year and after Jacob’s freshman year when she saw him toss a football around by the water.
“I knew how to throw a football,” Emma said. “But it was really cute, because Jacob was throwing a football, and I was like, ‘Oh, my god, teach me how to throw a football.’ That’s how we met.”
Texas Tech linebacker Jacob Rodriguez (left) and his wife, Emma Rodriguez (right).
Emma Rodriguez / Courtesy: Emma Rodriguez
She was the self-described “tomboy” in a family that included four daughters. Their father introduced her to sports early and taught her how to mow the lawn when she was 6 years old. Her interest in the military followed soon after and she developed a “lifelong dream” to attend West Point when the university was introduced to her at a leadership camp she attended in middle school. The New York-based academy, she learned upon further research, appealed because it required strict conviction and bred leaders.
“My parents thought, whenever they had four girls, that they’d missed the Army,” Emma said. “Joke’s on them.”
Her in-laws aren’t strangers to the unexpected either. Joe and Ann Rodriguez had two daughters — Katie and Nicole — before they tried for a boy and welcomed twins Jeremiah and Joshua into the world. Jacob, the youngest of five, was born as a result of a failed vasectomy after his parents decided that four children were enough.
The family believed that God had other plans when Jacob arrived, and they consider his current path as certifiable evidence. Those plans also expanded the four-person family into a seven-person unit in a 17-month span and left a stay-at-home mother with three rowdy boys separated by two years.
“They needed to get into something,” Joe Rodriguez said, “because they were tearing the house apart.”
The family, then based in Hastings, Minn., balked at the gaudy cost of hockey and settled on wrestling thanks to the favorable price point and because former football coach and broadcaster John Madden once said that grapplers can make good tacklers on the football field.
Rodriguez won multiple youth wrestling state championships before he transitioned to football. He played quarterback in little league because of the size and athleticism advantage he held over his peers — so much so that Ann carried her son’s birth certificate around to prove his age — and did the same when he reached high school after the family moved south.
“We did not let him play defense very much,” then-Wichita Falls Rider head coach Marc Bindel said. “I’m probably dumb for not doing it, but when he was out there on defense, he was a complete difference-maker.”
Rodriguez, whom Bindel compared to former Florida quarterback Tim Tebow, also played safety. Once as a junior, in a late-season district game vs. Canyon Randall, Rodriguez identified a play pre-snap and sprinted past his linebackers and linemen to blow up a fourth-and-1 halfback dive behind the line of scrimmage.
“He picked the running back up and slammed him on the ground,” said Bindel, who now coaches at Wichita Falls Memorial. “We sent that to the Texas Tech defensive coordinator and the next day he had a linebacker offer.”
The Red Raiders were the first school to offer Rodriguez at linebacker three days after that tackle. Then-Baylor linebackers coach Joey McGuire was the second. Rodriguez, a three-star recruit in the 2021 class, clung to the belief that he could play quarterback at the Division I level. The opportunities afforded to him were split between offense and defense.
His parents believe he might’ve seriously considered the Bears had they extended him an offer to play quarterback. Virginia did, and because head coach Bronco Mendenhall made four separate visits to Wichita Falls, Rodriguez and his family felt comfortable with the fit.
It helped, too, that Charlottesville, Va., is only a six-hour drive from West Point, N.Y.
Emma Rodriguez (left) poses for a photo with her husband, Texas Tech linebacker Jacob Rodriguez (right) ahead of the Red Raiders’ game against Houston at TDECU Stadium on October 4, 2025.
Emma Rodriguez / Courtesy: Emma Rodriguez
‘Life decisions’
The twist lies in the separation. The couple briefly broke up once both reached college. Emma Rodriguez had just taken the oath of affirmation at West Point — in which juniors commit to their final two years at the university and a subsequent active-duty obligation in the military — and Jacob Rodriguez had just begun his collegiate football career.
“One thing that we always talk about is that the breakup that we had is the best thing for our relationship possible,” Emma Rodriguez said. “It allowed us to make our own life decisions.”
His included a gamble that’s shaped his life since. Rodriguez played several offensive positions in his freshman season at Virginia and entered the transfer portal after Mendenhall stepped down. His older brother Joshua had already walked on at Texas Tech and his preexisting relationship with McGuire gave him confidence that the Red Raiders were a fit.
At linebacker.
“There wasn’t really a conversation,” Rodriguez said. “It was more, ‘We have three really good quarterbacks in Tyler Shough, Donovan Smith and Behren Morton, and we don’t have a need to take another quarterback, and if you decide to come this way, it’s not going to be at quarterback.’”
It wasn’t going to be as a scholarship athlete, either, though McGuire promised to rectify that as soon as one opened up. Until then, with what financial support his parents could offer, Rodriguez slept on the floor of Joshua’s one-bedroom apartment, which was already occupied by four others.
Baylor quarterback Blake Shapen, bottom right, is tackled by Texas Tech linebacker Jacob Rodriguez (13) and defensive back Dadrion Taylor-Demerson, left, during the second half of an NCAA college football game Saturday, Oct. 29, 2022, in Lubbock, Texas.
Justin Rex / AP
McGuire offered him a scholarship before the fall semester ended. By springtime, when Rodriguez participated in his practices with the Red Raiders as a scholarship athlete, he turned heads. Texas Tech assistant head coach and special teams coordinator Kenny Perry called Bindel in the midst of it.
“He was like, ‘Good lord, Jacob Rodriguez,’” Bindel said. “I was like, ‘Oh yeah, get ready, sir.’”
Rodriguez was a backup in his sophomore season and reunited with his girlfriend that same year. He played just five games because of injury as a junior and was an All-Big 12 first-team honoree as a senior when he led the Red Raiders with 127 tackles, 10.5 tackles for loss and five sacks.
First-year Red Raiders defensive coordinator Shiel Wood experienced something similar to Perry’s impression this spring. He was only familiar with Rodriguez from the tape he’d watched and his head coach’s praise. Then, in the team’s first scrimmage, he watched Rodriguez track a wide receiver in coverage and punch the ball out from his hands after the reception.
“Golly, this guy’s really got a knack for that,” Wood thought, “I’d seen it on the game film from last year and now I’ve seen it in person. Now, lo and behold, I never could have imagined that I would be seeing what has transpired this fall in games.”
Rodriguez has forced a nation-high seven fumbles in nine games with what Wood describes as a “violent and intentional” technique that allows him to aggressively thwack out balls and maintain his poise to finish a tackle if his now-signature strike doesn’t work.
“I’ve never been around any defensive player that has been close in that regard,” Wood said. “The cool thing is he is creating a culture here. Guys are seeing how he does it, we’re working it in drills and they’re feeding off of it.”
The Red Raiders have the top-ranked overall defense, run defense and pass coverage defense in the country, per PFF, and Rodriguez is the highest-graded linebacker in the nation. He leads them in tackles (74), pass breakups (5) and interceptions (2).
Tech was the 89th-highest-graded defense among all FBS programs from the 2014-24 seasons.
“To flip it around and see where we’re at this year,” Rodriguez said, “it’s amazing.”
He credited Wood, too, who coached at seven different colleges and universities before he joined McGuire’s staff this season. He was Army’s defensive coordinator at the same time Emma Rodriguez attended the university.
“They produce great people and great leaders,” Wood said of West Point. “You don’t go there unless you’ve already got a lot of great qualities about you in the first place. I see a lot of that in him.”
His parents saw it when Jacob missed the kindergarten age cutoff by a single day, enrolled in a private school, became the “teacher’s helper” and was named “Most Likely To Become President” at his graduation before grade school began. His high school coach saw it when Rodriguez, then a sophomore at Rider, interrupted Bindel’s halftime speech to give a “we’re not losing this game” address of his own and when he secretly dressed up as Captain America to visit children at a local Wichita Falls hospital. His wife sees it in the ways that the curriculum she learned at West Point aligns with her husband’s innate ideology.
“Every single book you read about leadership — Jacob has never read them — but he is those books,” Emma said. “I’ve read a lot of those books, and any book you pick up that’s like ‘these are the key steps to being a good leader,’ he is naturally that.”
Texas Tech linebacker Jacob Rodriguez speaks with reporters during Big 12 Media Days at the Ford Center, Tuesday, July 8, 2025, in Frisco.
Elías Valverde II / Staff Photographer
‘I’ve done my dream, let’s go do yours’
The couple was wed on July 1, 2023, in Houston. Emma had already graduated from West Point and pledged herself to a military career. Jacob had his own commitment he was prepared to make.
“OK,” Jacob said after the wedding, “I really want to go to the NFL.”
“OK,” Emma responded, “Let’s do it.”
“Really?” Jacob asked.
“I went to West Point, I now fly helicopters, that was my dream and I did it,” Emma said. “Let’s go have yours. You now have the opportunity to go do this. Let’s do it. I’ve done my dream, let’s go do yours.”
Emma Rodriguez is an aviator with the Charlie 2-1 medevac unit, flies weekly for 4-6 hours each trip and serves as a platoon leader who oversees 20 soldiers who make up the larger 80-person company. Jacob Rodriguez is effectively a full-time football player with his own demands. The two largely communicate via FaceTime and visit each other when Emma Rodriguez has weekends off.
Bindel is familiar with both families. He thinks the strength of their relationship and ability to “keep the main thing the main thing” derives from how both were raised. Jacob Rodriguez was 8 years old when his father was diagnosed with Leiomyosarcoma cancer. His mother underwent five back surgeries because of a separate medical condition that same year.
“I think that you could see the change in the kids when we faced adversity,” Joe Rodriguez said. “We hated to go through it at the moment we were in it, but what I learned was to appreciate the little things a lot more, and I think that’s where we probably got a lot of that.”
It’s allowed the couple to navigate their dreams together from afar.
“Having somebody that supports you as much as she does,” Jacob Rodriguez said. “Who am I to not work hard during the week? If she cares about me this much, and if she believes in me this much, it would be wrong for me not to try as hard as I can and do everything possible that I can to be successful.”
Emma Rodriguez (left) and her husband, Texas Tech linebacker Jacob Rodriguez (right).
Emma Rodriguez / Courtesy: Emma Rodriguez
Last Saturday, after the Red Raiders beat Kansas State with Emma Rodriguez in attendance, she quote-tweeted a Wildcats fan account that predicted a Texas Tech loss to say “Give #JacobRodriguez the @HeismanTrophy.” Two days later she posted “rise, shine and vote” with a directive for fans to click the link in her bio that brings them to the award’s fan vote website. She tagged the trophy’s account one day later with the message “I want to vote for #JacobRodriguez.” Dozens of posts from Red Raiders fan accounts that praise her husband are reposted and scattered on her timeline between her own.
She’s been shown on several television broadcasts of Red Raiders games and has developed “haters” because she believes “a lot of people don’t like seeing someone who’s not affiliated with football in the slightest on their TV in a football game.”
Her husband thinks that a large portion of his publicity — which has helped lead to name, image and likeness deals that allow the two to visit more often — is because of her. It’s spread to the entire family. A Red Raiders fan asked Joe Rodriguez for a photo outside of a gas station on their drive to Lubbock prior to a win vs. Oklahoma State last month. Another asked Ann Rodriguez to sign their jersey during last Saturday’s Kansas State game.
“I said, ‘Me?’” Ann Rodriguez said. “I thought they were talking to Emma.”
Emma Rodriguez hosted Texas Tech’s linebackers on a visit to the airfield while the team was in nearby Manhattan, Kan., for that game. They were “like kids in a candy store” around the planes, she said, in the same weekend that their defense totaled 12 tackles for loss in a pivotal conference win.
Rodriguez, for the record, is not listed as a candidate for the quarterback-friendly Heisman Trophy by any major oddsmakers. Michigan’s Jabril Peppers was the most-recent finalist at the position nine years ago. McGuire pitched his captain’s case last week and cited the difference in the team’s abilities when he’s on or off the field. Rodriguez laughed when asked if he could have ever imagined he’d be close to the discussion.
“Growing up, I wanted to win the Heisman as a quarterback, I had my thoughts of being in the conversation as a quarterback,” Rodriguez said. “Once I switched to linebacker, especially those earlier years, man I was just trying to make the team.”
He’s done that and then some.
“The only thing that would make it better,” Ann Rodriguez said, “is if Emma was with him all the time.”
Emma Rodriguez kisses her husband, Texas Tech linebacker Jacob Rodriguez, at Jones AT&T Stadium in Lubbock, TX.
Emma Rodriguez / Courtesy: Emma Rodriguez
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