Oregon State football announced its hiring of Eron Hodges as the program’s general manager on Wednesday. Hodges is the program’s first GM.
Oregon State football announced its hiring of Eron Hodges as the program’s general manager on Wednesday. The official announcement comes nearly two weeks after Hodges’ social media accounts indicated he’d join new Beavers head coach JaMarcus Shephard in Corvallis.
“Eron Hodges has been involved with some of the most elite coaches in college football and around elite players all throughout the country,” Shephard wrote in a statement. “He has played a pivotal role in assuring the programs that he has worked at have had success, let alone building great relationships with not only the players, but their families and everyone who touched those young men as they were making decisions to attend those universities. It is a pleasure to have him at Oregon State University and we will build those same relationships here.”
Background on Oregon State’s general manager
Hodges, a Navy veteran, followed Shephard from Alabama to Oregon State. While the Beavers’ new head coach coached wide receivers and served as the team’s assistant head coach, Hodges acted as the Crimson Tide’s associate director of player personnel.
He is the program’s first football-specific general manager. Prior to Alabama, Hodges was TCU’s director of recruiting and a defensive analyst in the secondary (2022-23). He also served as Louisville’s recruiting coordinator (2021) and Texas Tech’s director of recruiting (2020). Hodges also had stops at Purdue, Ohio State, Kent State and Notre Dame in various roles.
“I’m excited to be here,” Hodges said. “This program is a hidden gem in college football, and I’m ecstatic to roll up my sleeves with Coach Shephard and this elite staff and dig until we unearth all the gems within this team to build a program that our former players, alumni, fans and administration will be proud of once again.”
The press release did not specify Hodges’ day-to-day responsibilities for the Beavers. At Shephard’s introductory press conference on Dec. 2, Oregon State athletics director Scott Barnes shared a few details.
“This will be dedicated to football,” Barnes said. “We are committed to it, we’ve always been committed to the position… You think about a traditional NFL GM, the coach reports to a GM. This isn’t going to be that. But it’s going to be player-personnel focused, rev-share focused and getting those student-athletes signed.”
Hodges’ body of work
In his tenure at Alabama, Hodges helped the Crimson Tide sign 247Sports’ No. 2 and No. 3 recruiting classes for the classes of 2026 and 2025, respectively. TCU inked two top-50 classes (No. 37 in 2024 and No. 21 in 2023) with Hodges on staff. Louisville (No. 50, 2022) was no different. Texas Tech’s No. 75 class in 2021 is the only time a Hodges-led recruiting effort finished outside the top-50.
Oregon State’s 2026 signing-class ranks No. 121 nationally. The Beavers haven’t signed a top-50 class since penning the nation’s 43rd-best in the class of 2019 under then-head coach Jonathan Smith.
