Tom Luginbill breaks down his viral field storm dash following Duke vs. Clemson

As Duke put the final touches on its big upset victory over Clemson in Week 1, ESPN sideline reporter Tom Luginbill had perhaps the toughest job in the building. As the Duke student section was preparing to storm the field — they came down from the stands with a couple minutes left — he had to get across the field for the postgame interview with Mike Elko.

The broadcast captured Luginbill in front of the massive crowd as the clock ticked down to zero. Afterward, ESPN’s Matt Schick posted video of Luginbill’s excellent adventure across the field at Wallace Wade Stadium. It quickly went viral, and it made for quite the story.

Luginbill couldn’t have the sideline cameraman with him because the camera wasn’t wireless. That meant he was pretty much flying solo to get to Elko and would find another camera to do the interview. But then, he lost sight of him — and that’s when the fun began.

The best performance from week one?

Tom Luginbill navigating the scrum following the Duke/Clemson game.

Had good pad level, created space, shed blocks and finished strong.

His coach is gonna be pleased when he goes back and watches the film. pic.twitter.com/UhHsFOI8vA

— Matt Schick (@ESPN_Schick) September 6, 2023

“Generally, I’m really good on the angle side of it,” Luginbill told On3’s Andy Staples on Andy Staples On3. “Like, what angle I should take? Because my assumption here is that Mike Elko, when the thing goes zero — and this is where I was wrong. When the thing goes zero, generally what happens, the players come up and hug you, an assistant coach hugs you. Maybe you get a Gatorade bath, you’re shaking a couple hands. He doesn’t do that. He bolts. Like, he runs to meet up with Dabo Swinney.

“So I take a horrible angle. If this was a tackling drill, I’d be off scholarship. I take a horrible angle, and then I have to stop for a second. You see me, and I pop my head up a little bit and I see where he’s at. That’s when I took the hard left. And I didn’t care if you were in a uniform, I didn’t care if you were a male, female, dog, cat. I didn’t care if you were a student, a coach. I was going to blast through there.”

That meant the first part of Luginbill’s journey was over. But as he pushed through the crowd and stiff-armed the celebrating students, his IFB fell out. That’s his earpiece, which is used to hear the production staff and the announcers in the booth.

Remember, he didn’t have a cameraman with him. That meant Luginbill had to figure out how to not only find his IFB, but also do the interview. Luckily for him, he caught a break.

“Somehow, through going through all of that, [the IFB] gets popped out,” Luginbill said. “So when I arrive at Elko, I can’t hear the broadcast. It’s dead air. I can’t hear the producer, I can’t hear Dave [Pasch], I can’t hear Dusty [Dvoracek]. Nothing. It’s blank. So now I’m going, ‘Okay, we got a problem,’ because I don’t know what camera we’re using to tape the interview because we knew we weren’t going to use the handheld. And now, I can’t hear production.

“So I’m sitting there and I’m looking down, and I looked down at my right leg and the cable had popped out here, was still plugged into my waist and it’s dangling like I had a tail. So it’s down below my knee. I go down, and I reach down and I grab it, pop it back in and right as I pop it back in, I hear Dave go, ‘Lugs? Lugs, are you there buddy? Do we have you? Do you got Coach Elko?’ And, off we went.”

The interview went well as Elko celebrated a top-10 victory. It was quite the story for Luginbill, who’s in his 10th year as a sideline reporter for ESPN along with his duties as director of recruiting.

It wasn’t over, though. As some pointed out on social media, Luginbill wasn’t wearing tennis shoes. He was wearing boots, which is his normal fashion choice. When he returned to the hotel, he found the aftermath of his trek across Wallace Wade Stadium.

“I was in black, caiman alligator cowboy boots. … I’m always wearing boots,” Luginbill said. “Everywhere I go. I don’t own a pair of dress shoes. In the 10 years — this is my 10th year on the field as a field analyst — I’ve worn boots every single game I’ve ever been on the field. And this time, because of all the craziness, I got back to the hotel room, I had white field paint all over them. I’ve got to clean them all up now.”

In light of the upset, the story of college football became how Clemson could bounce back and what the loss meant for Swinney and the Tigers. But Luginbill’s journey to land the postgame interview is, without a doubt, the best story to come out of a memorable night in Durham.