DALLAS — Denton Ryan High School quarterback Scotty Young helped transform his coach from the model of old-time Texas football to a prototype of the modern age.

That can happen when you throw for 8,962 yards and 129 touchdowns in two years, both times nearly breaking the single-season state mark for TD passes.

Young was named the Texas Associated Press Sports Editors Player of the Year on Friday after passing for 3,191 yards and 44 touchdowns during the regular season.

The Texas Tech-bound senior probably didn’t know it, but he renamed Ryan coach Joey Florence in the process.

“What I’ve done is I’ve gone from being Gordon Wood to being (Tech coach) Mike Leach,” Florence said, referring to Wood’s penchant for run-based offenses in a career that included nine Texas high school championships.

The transformation actually started a decade ago when Florence took the Ryan job and started winning bunches of games with dual-threat quarterbacks James Battle and Justin Willis. The Raiders made four straight championship game appearances from 2000 to 2003, winning it all twice.

Florence said he had always been a running coach out of the Wing-T, a classic offense that was the foundation for many Texas powers, including Odessa Permian. It didn’t take him long to realize his best athletes at Ryan were quarterbacks and receivers.

The running ability of Battle and Willis kept the ball mostly on the ground for Ryan. Young isn’t nearly as mobile, and Florence said the Raiders tried to adjust by adding running personnel early in Young’s first season last year. Eventually, though, they stopped trying to force the running game into their offense.

“We felt like we were speading people out and we had the receivers that were good and Scotty could get it to them,” Florence said. “And we became much more like Texas Tech. It was not by design. We felt like it was what our kids could do.”

Including the playoffs, Young threw 452 passes — or 32 per game — and completed 286 for 4,467 yards and 64 touchdowns this year. The TD mark was one shy of his 2008 total, when he missed by two scores the single-season record of 67 held by former Ennis and Texas Tech star Graham Harrell.

Now Young could end up chasing some of the crazy numbers Harrell posted in three seasons as the starter for the Red Raiders. Harrell’s the only player in NCAA history with two 5,000-yard seasons, and he holds every major career passing record at Tech.

Florence doesn’t have any predictions for Young’s Texas Tech career. He just knows Young was by far the best pocket passer he’s ever coached.

“His arm is as strong as any kid I’ve seen in high school. And we’ve played against some good ones,” Florence said. “I put Scotty’s arm with any of them. He’s got the tools.”