Matthew Barham Luke (born October 29, 1976) is an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

coach and former player who, most recently served as the associate

head coach A head coach, senior coach or manager is a professional at training and developing athletes. They typically hold a more public profile and are paid more than other coaches. In some sports, the head coach is instead called the "manager", as in assoc ...

and

offensive line In gridiron football, a lineman is a player who specializes in play at the line of scrimmage. The linemen of the team currently in possession of the ball are the offensive line, while linemen on the opposing team are the defensive line. A numbe ...

coach at the

University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...

. Luke was fired from his previous job as the head coach at the

University of Mississippi The University of Mississippi (byname Ole Miss) is a public research university that is located adjacent to Oxford, Mississippi, and has a medical center in Jackson. It is Mississippi's oldest public university and its largest by enrollment. ...

after amassing a 15–21 record over three seasons.

Playing career

Luke was born in

Gulfport, Mississippi Gulfport is the second-largest city in Mississippi after the state capital, Jackson. Along with Biloxi, Gulfport is the co-county seat of Harrison County and the larger of the two principal cities of the Gulfport-Biloxi, Mississippi Metropolitan ...

. He was a standout at

Gulfport High School Gulfport High School (GHS) is a public high school located in Gulfport, Mississippi, United States. It is part of the Gulfport School District. In 2019, Gulfport High was given a B-rating from the Mississippi Statewide Accountability System. The ...

, but he was a walk-on at Ole Miss, where scholarships were limited because of

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

sanctions. He played

center Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentrici ...

there from 1995 to 1998, graduating in 2000. His father, Tommy Luke, played

defensive back In gridiron football, defensive backs (DBs), also called the secondary, are the players on the defensive side of the ball who play farthest back from the line of scrimmage. They are distinguished from the other two sets of defensive players, the ...

at Ole Miss in the 1960s while his older brother, Tom Luke, played

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

there from 1989 to 1991. As a senior, he played in the 1998 Independence Bowl against

Texas Tech Texas Tech University (Texas Tech, Tech, or TTU) is a public research university in Lubbock, Texas. Established on , and called Texas Technological College until 1969, it is the main institution of the five-institution Texas Tech University Sys ...

Coaching career

Assistant coach

Luke exhausted his

eligibility Eligibility may refer to: * The right to run for office (in elections), sometimes called ''passive suffrage'' or ''voting eligibility'' * Desirability as a marriage partner, as in the term ''eligible bachelor'' * Validity for participation, as in ...

after the 1999 season but joined the coaching staff as a graduate assistant. After graduating from Ole Miss in 2000 with a

Bachelor of Business Administration Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) is a bachelor's degree in business administration awarded by colleges and universities after completion of undergraduate study in the fundamentals of business administration and usually including advanced ...

, he took a job with

Murray State University Murray State University (MSU) is a public university in Murray, Kentucky. In addition to the main campus in Calloway County in southwestern Kentucky, Murray State operates extended campuses offering upper level and graduate courses in Paducah, H ...

as an

coach. Following the 2001 season, he returned to Ole Miss to coach offensive line and tight ends under

David Cutcliffe David Nelson Cutcliffe (born September 16, 1954) is the Special Assistant to the Commissioner for Football Relations at the Southeastern Conference and former college football coach, most recently head coach of the Duke University Blue Devils. ...

. Ole Miss fired Cutcliffe after the 2004 season, but new head coach

Ed Orgeron Edward James Orgeron Jr. (; born July 27, 1961) is an American football coach. He was most recently the head football coach at Louisiana State University (LSU), a position he held from midway through the 2016 season until the 2021 season. Orge ...

retained Luke as part of his staff. Luke departed Ole Miss in 2006 to be reunited with Cutcliffe at the

University of Tennessee The University of Tennessee (officially The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; or UT Knoxville; UTK; or UT) is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state, ...

, where Cutcliffe was the assistant head coach and

offensive coordinator An offensive coordinator is a member of the coaching staff of an American football or Canadian football team who is in charge of the team's offense. Generally, along with the defensive coordinator and the special teams coordinator, this coach re ...

under head coach

Phillip Fulmer Phillip Edward Fulmer Sr. (born September 1, 1950) is a former American football player, coach, and athletic director at the University of Tennessee. He served as head coach of the Tennessee Volunteers football team from 1992 to 2008, compiling ...

. Luke coached the offensive line and tight ends at Tennessee for two seasons (2006–2007). In early 2008,

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

hired Cutcliffe as its new head coach, and Cutcliffe brought several Tennessee assistants with him, including Luke. At Duke, Luke was co-offensive coordinator with responsibility for the running game, while also coaching the offensive line. Luke departed Duke at the end of the 2011 season to rejoin the Ole Miss coaching staff under new head coach

Hugh Freeze Hugh may refer to: *Hugh (given name) Noblemen and clergy French * Hugh the Great (died 956), Duke of the Franks * Hugh Magnus of France (1007–1025), co-King of France under his father, Robert II * Hugh, Duke of Alsace (died 895), modern-day ...

. At Ole Miss, he had a similar role: co-offensive coordinator and offensive line coach.

Head coach

On July 20, 2017, Luke became the interim head coach at Ole Miss after Freeze was forced to resign. After a late season push to finish 6–6, Ole Miss removed the interim tag on November 26, 2017 and named Luke the 37th head football coach in school history. Ole Miss did not play in a bowl game; it had withdrawn from bowl consideration in response to

rules violations committed when Freeze was head coach. The school and NCAA also imposed additional penalties, including a second post-season ban for the 2018 season (which also allowed athletes near the end of their eligibility to transfer without penalty); three years of NCAA probation; reductions in scholarships; and recruiting restrictions. Ole Miss finished with losing records in the next two seasons, resulting in Luke's firing on December 1, 2019.

Georgia

On December 10, 2019, Luke joined the Georgia football staff as an offensive line coach and associate head coach. He helped guide the 2021 Georgia Bulldogs football team to the national championship. On February 21, 2022, he stepped down from his position, citing a need to spend more time with his family.

Head coaching record

References

External links

Georgia Bulldogs bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Luke, Matt 1976 births American football centers Living people Duke Blue Devils football coaches Georgia Bulldogs football coaches Murray State Racers football coaches Ole Miss Rebels football coaches Ole Miss Rebels football players Tennessee Volunteers football coaches People from Gulfport, Mississippi Coaches of American football from Mississippi Players of American football from Mississippi