Barry Lunney Jr. (born September 11, 1974) 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 wit ...

coach. He is the offensive coordinator at the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Unive ...

. Lunney served as the interim head football coach at the

University of Arkansas The University of Arkansas (U of A, UArk, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It is the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas System and the largest university in the state. Founded as Arkansas ...

for the final two games of the 2019 season.

Playing career

Lunney Jr. started at QB for his father Barry Lunney Sr. at Southside High School in

Fort Smith, Arkansas Fort Smith is the third-largest city in Arkansas and one of the two county seats of Sebastian County. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 89,142. It is the principal city of the Fort Smith, Arkansas–Oklahoma Metropolitan Statistical Area ...

, leading that team to the 1991 state championship as a senior. Lunney Jr. then signed a scholarship to play for the

Arkansas Razorbacks The Arkansas Razorbacks, also known as the Hogs, are the intercollegiate athletics teams representing the University of Arkansas, located in Fayetteville. The University of Arkansas student body voted to change the name of the school mascot (o ...

as part of the 1992 signing class, and went on to start 40 games at

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 ...

during his playing career at Arkansas. His first start was at Tennessee in 1992, and he led the Hogs to an upset victory over the #4 Vols, 25-24, thanks to a field goal on the last play of the game by placekicker Todd Wright. Lunney Jr. was selected as one of the team captains for the

1995 Arkansas Razorbacks football team The 1995 Arkansas Razorbacks football team represented the University of Arkansas during the 1995 NCAA Division I-A football season. The 1995 season was a season of firsts for Arkansas. It saw the Razorbacks beat Alabama, Memphis St, Auburn, and ...

, and led that squad to Arkansas' first SEC Western Division title, and the program's first appearance in the

SEC Championship game The SEC Championship Game is an annual American football game that has determined the Southeastern Conference's season champion since 1992. The championship game pits the SEC East Division regular season champion against the West Division regula ...

. There were a number of other firsts in the 1995 season for Lunney Jr and the Hogs: Lunney Jr. led Arkansas to their first victories over Alabama, Auburn, Memphis, Mississippi State, and their first win in a game played in the Liberty Bowl facility when Arkansas defeated Ole Miss in a conference game played at the stadium due to construction at Ole Miss' home stadium in Oxford. Lunney Jr. would hold the team record for passing yards, passing touchdowns, pass completions, pass attempts and total offensive plays for a few years after his graduation, until he was eventually surpassed by

Clint Stoerner Clinton Jacob Stoerner (born December 29, 1977) is a former American football quarterback, who played in the National Football League for the Dallas Cowboys and the Miami Dolphins. He also played in the Arena Football League and NFL Europe. ...

in 1999. Lunney Jr. also played

college baseball College baseball is baseball that is played on the intercollegiate level at institutions of higher education. In comparison to football and basketball, college competition in the United States plays a smaller role in developing professional pl ...

, playing one season of minor league baseball for the

Minnesota Twins The Minnesota Twins are an American professional baseball team based in Minneapolis. The Twins compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central Division. The team is named after the Twin Cities area ...

organization in 1997, before returning to football as a coach.

Coaching career

Lunney Jr. began his coaching career as a

graduate assistant A graduate assistant serves in a support role at a university, usually while completing post-graduate education. The assistant typically helps professors with instructional responsibilities as teaching assistants or with academic research resp ...

coach during the

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...

and

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school s ...

seasons at Arkansas before moving to

Tulsa Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with ...

for the

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a multi-national coalition in an invasion of Afghanistan ...

, and

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains independence from Indonesia and ...

seasons as

quarterbacks 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 Amer ...

(2000-2001) and wide receivers (2002) coach. He then moved on to be the co- offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for

San Jose State San José State University (San Jose State or SJSU) is a public university in San Jose, California. Established in 1857, SJSU is the oldest public university on the West Coast and the founding campus of the California State University (CSU) sy ...

for two seasons, the last of which the Spartans ranked 17th in the NCAA in passing offense. From 2005 to 2012, Lunney Jr. was the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for

Bentonville High School Bentonville High School (BHS) is a public high school in Bentonville, Arkansas, United States. Founded in 1910, the school provides education for students in grades nine through twelve. It is one of two high schools of the Bentonville School Dist ...

Northwest Arkansas Northwest Arkansas (NWA) is a metropolitan area and region in Arkansas within the Ozark Mountains. It includes four of the ten largest cities in the state: Fayetteville, Arkansas, Fayetteville, Springdale, Arkansas, Springdale, Rogers, Arkansas, ...

, during which time the team won six conference titles and two state championships.

Arkansas

From the

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment ...

to the

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

season, Lunney Jr. was the

tight ends The tight end (TE) is a position in American football, arena football, and Canadian football, on the offense. The tight end is often a hybrid position with the characteristics and roles of both an offensive lineman and a wide receiver. Like ...

coach and recruiting coordinator for in-state recruits at Arkansas. From 2014-2016, Lunney developed one of the top tight ends in Arkansas history in Hunter Henry, who won the John Mackey Award and was a consensus first-team All-American as a junior in 2015. On November 11, 2019, Barry Lunney Jr. took over as interim head coach for Arkansas, following the firing of former head coach

Chad Morris Chad Allen Morris (born December 4, 1968) is an American football coach. He is currently an offensive analyst at South Florida. Morris served as the head football coach at Southern Methodist University (SMU) from 2015 to 2017 and the University ...

. During his tenure as interim head coach, Arkansas lost at eventual national champion #1

LSU Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 near ...

, and at home to Missouri.

UTSA

Lunney was named associate head coach, offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at

University of Texas at San Antonio The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) is a public research university in San Antonio, Texas. With over 34,000 students across its four campuses spanning 758 acres, UTSA is the largest university in San Antonio and the eighth-largest by ...

(UTSA) on December 13, 2019. Prior to UTSA's matchup against

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a U.S. state, state in the Deep South and South Central United States, South Central regions of the United States. It is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 20th-smal ...

in the

2020 First Responder Bowl The 2020 First Responder Bowl was a college football bowl game played on December 26, 2020, with kickoff at 3:30 p.m. EST (2:30 p.m. local CST) on ABC. It was the 11th edition of the First Responder Bowl, and was one of the 2020–2 ...

, UTSA head coach

Jeff Traylor Jeffrey Michael Traylor (born May 9, 1968) is an American football coach. He is the head football coach at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), a position he has held since the 2020 season. Early life Traylor attended Gilmer High Scho ...

tested positive for

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickl ...

. Lunney served as acting head coach for the game. UTSA lost the game, 31–24, finishing the season at 7–5. The

2021 UTSA Roadrunners football team The 2021 UTSA Roadrunners football team represented the University of Texas at San Antonio during the 2021 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The Roadrunners played their home games at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, and competed in the W ...

compiled a record of 12–2. They won the

Conference USA Conference USA (C-USA or CUSA) is an intercollegiate athletic conference whose current member institutions are located within the Southern United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports. C-USA's offices are ...

West Division championship, before defeating

Western Kentucky Western Kentucky is the western portion of the U.S. state of Kentucky. It generally includes part or all of several more widely recognized regions of the state. ;Always included * The Jackson Purchase, the state's westernmost generally recogn ...

in the

Conference USA Football Championship Game The Conference USA Football Championship Game is an annual American football game that has determined the season champion of Conference USA (C-USA) since 2005. History The championship game from 2005–2021, showcased the C-USA East Division regul ...

, 49–41, to claim the program's first conference title. UTSA ended the season at the Frisco Bowl, where they lost to

San Diego State San Diego State University (SDSU) is a public research university in San Diego, California. Founded in 1897 as San Diego Normal School, it is the third-oldest university and southernmost in the 23-member California State University (CSU) system ...

, 38–24. UTSA's offense, under Lunney, averaged 442.9 total yards, 254.3 passing yards, 188.6 rushing yards, and 37.8 points per game.

Illinois

In December 2021, Lunney was hired as the offensive coordinator for the

Illinois Fighting Illini football The Illinois Fighting Illini football program represents the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in college football at the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) level. The Fighting Illini are a founding member o ...

team by former Arkansas head coach

Bret Bielema Bret Arnold Bielema (; born January 13, 1970) is currently the head American football coach at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Bielema served as the head football coach at of the University of Wisconsin–Madison from 2006 to 2012 ...

. Illinois would finish the season 8-5 after losing to Mississippi State in the Reliaquest Bowl. Under Lunney's play-calling, Illinois' offense averaged 379.1 yards per game, 211.8 yards passing, 167.3 yards rushing, and 24.2 points per game. It was Illinois' first bowl game appearance since 2019, and their first winning season since 2011. During the 2022 season, Lunney Jr. agreed to a one-year contract extension through the 2025 season, given in large part because the Illini were one of the most improved offenses in the Big Ten. The contract extension also increases Lunney's salary from $675,000 per year to $800,000 beginning in 2023 and $825,000 in each of the following two years.

Head coaching record

Personal life

Lunney graduated from Arkansas in 1996 with a bachelor's degree in kinesiology. He and his wife, Janelle, have two sons, Luke and Levi. His grandfather, John, lettered at Arkansas from 1946-49. His father, Barry Sr., retired after 28 years as a high school football coach in Arkansas, winning eight state championships at Bentonville High School and Fort Smith Southside High School.

Notes

References

External links

USTA profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lunney Jr., Barry 1974 births Living people American football quarterbacks Arkansas Razorbacks baseball players Arkansas Razorbacks football coaches Arkansas Razorbacks football players Elizabethton Twins players San Jose State Spartans football coaches Tulsa Golden Hurricane football coaches UTSA Roadrunners football coaches High school football coaches in Arkansas Coaches of American football from Arkansas Players of American football from Arkansas Baseball players from Arkansas