Tom Luginbill (born January 3, 1974) is a

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football in the United States, American football rules first gained populari ...

analyst for

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

. Luginbill grew up in

Tempe, Arizona , settlement_type = City , named_for = Vale of Tempe , image_skyline = Tempeskyline3.jpg , imagesize = 260px , image_caption = Tempe skyline as se ...

and San Diego. He is the son of the professional and college coach Al Luginbill.

Playing career

Luginbill was the starting

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 Am ...

for three colleges over his four-year career. He had varying degrees of success ranging from a national championship to a one-win season. He played football for

Palomar College Palomar College is a public community college in San Diego County, California. The main campus is in San Marcos and three centers and four education sites are located elsewhere throughout north San Diego County. The largest of these by student ...

(Juco) from 1992–1993, where he amassed 21 wins. In 1993, he led Palomar to the National Junior College championship and a perfect 11–0 record, and was named a first-team All-American by the Junior College Athletic Bureau. Luginbill also set the all-time national junior college record for passing while playing for Palomar Junior College, becoming the most highly recruited junior college player in the nation. He still owns numerous team records at Palomar (as of January 26, 2010). He then transferred to

Georgia Tech The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...

and won the starting quarterback position in 1994 from

Donnie Davis Donnie Davis (born December 16, 1972) was the starting quarterback for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in 1993 and 1995. He later played in the Arena Football League for the Arizona Rattlers, Milwaukee Mustangs, and Georgia Force. College D ...

, who had started all eleven games the previous year. In 1994, despite Luginbill turning in performances that would earn him ACC Rookie of the Year honors, the Jackets, purportedly embroiled in controversy over the decision to demote Davis and start Luginbill, would manage to only defeat Division I-AA Western Carolina going 1–10 on the season. With the departure of Bill Lewis and instatement of

George O'Leary George Joseph O'Leary (born August 17, 1946) is a former American football coach and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach of the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets from 1994 to 2001 and the UCF Knights from 2004 to 201 ...

as the head coach at Georgia Tech, a change in offensive scheme would prompt Luginbill to consider another transfer. Luginbill transferred and played his final year at Eastern Kentucky in 1995. Luginbill went into the

Arena Football League The Arena Football League (AFL) was a professional arena football league in the United States. It was founded in 1986, but played its first official games in the 1987 season, making it the third longest-running professional football league in ...

and played for the Texas Terror in 1996 and the

Florida Bobcats The Florida Bobcats were an Arena Football League (AFL) team based in Sunrise, Florida. They were previously known as the Sacramento Attack and the Miami Hooters, and played in the AFL for a total of ten seasons, the last seven in West Palm Beach ...

in 1997.

Coaching career

Luginbill's short playing career led him into coaching in four professional football leagues—the XFL,

NFL Europe NFL Europe League (simply called NFL Europe and known in its final season as NFL Europa League) was a professional American football league that functioned as the developmental minor league of the National Football League (NFL). Originally ...

, the

, and af2. Luginbill's first coaching job was as a player personnel/coaching assistant with his father for the Amsterdam Admirals in 1996 and 1997. He then joined the AFL's

New York CityHawks The Toronto Phantoms were a professional arena football team based in Toronto, Ontario. The team was a member of the Eastern Division of the National Conference of the Arena Football League (AFL). The team also previously operated in New York C ...

in 1998 as QB 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 r ...

. Luginbill's first

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 asso ...

ing job was for af2's

Tennessee Valley Vipers Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 36th-largest by ...

in 2000 where he was a 25-year-old head coach that lead his team to the ArenaCup championship game in their inaugural season. When the XFL was formed in 2001, Luginbill again went to work with his father as assistant for the league champion Los Angeles Xtreme. He was the QB coach for league MVP Tommy Maddox prior to Maddox moving back into the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the majo ...

. Luginbill then moved on to the NFL with the

Dallas Cowboys The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football team based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The Cowboys compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divis ...

and then the AFL's Dallas Desperados as the offensive coordinator and player personnel director. He then got a new head coaching job with the

Detroit Fury The Detroit Fury were an arena football team based in Auburn Hills, Michigan. History The team was a member of the Arena Football League from 2001 to 2004 and played at The Palace of Auburn Hills, also the home of the NBA's Detroit Pistons. The ...

in 2002 before the franchise folded in 2004. He would finish the season with the Fury before moving on to work for Scouts Inc. as an NFL personnel evaluator which has led to his current role as National Recruiting Director for ESPN's college football recruiting service Scouts Inc.

References

External links

Tom Luginbill's ESPN bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Luginbill, Tom 1974 births Living people American football quarterbacks Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football players Eastern Kentucky Colonels football players Texas Terror players Florida Bobcats players Los Angeles Xtreme coaches Detroit Fury coaches Dallas Cowboys coaches Sportspeople from Tempe, Arizona Players of American football from San Diego Palomar Comets football players Dallas Desperados coaches Nashville Kats coaches Toronto Phantoms coaches Alabama Vipers coaches Amsterdam Admirals coaches College football announcers XFL (2020) broadcasters

Playing career

Coaching career

See also

References

External links