Northwestern’s back-up placekicker Drew Luckenbaugh was thrust into duty this week when first-stringer, Charlie Kuhbander went down with an injury. Luckenbaugh’s first career field-goal attempt Saturday went about as poorly as possible.
He anticipated his initial attempt, a 42 yard effort, with so much gusto that he actually kicked it before it was fully placed, and the result was an unsightly line drive that barely left the ground — and ended up nowhere near the goalposts.
“Collins barely had the ball down and Drew was hitting the ball,” Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald explained.
While his first FGA went about as pleasantly as using Windows ’98 in 2018, his next two attempts were as efficient as a Cisco Systems router.
Luckenbaugh would hit his next two attempts, from 31 yards out with 2:27 left in regulation and from 37 out in overtime, to cap Northwestern’s thrilling comeback from 10 points down with 5:41 to play in regulation versus Nebraska.
Kicking the game-winner in a 34-31 OT comeback triumph, and getting carried off the field by his teammates is still far from the most interesting thing about Drew Luckenbaugh.
The redshirt sophomore, and preferred walk-on, is a budding young entrepreneur and ace student majoring in computer science.
“He’s in the garage over on campus as much as he’s in the football building. His future in life is spectacular,” said Fitzgerald.
“I joke with him, ‘What are you going to invent cold fusion or something?’ I’m just honored to be his coach because he’s a lot smarter than I am, I’ll just put it to you that way.”
What’s the garage exactly? A high-tech sandbox where some of the finest minds can play?
“It’s a place on campus where entrepreneurs can go with their ideas and work on it with advisors that have expertise in all these different fields,” said Luckenbaugh, who has worked on two start-ups in the facility that specializes in incubating innovation.
So it’s kind of like the environment depicted on the HBO series “Silicon Valley”?
“Pretty much,” Luckenbaugh responded.
“They have all kinds of different rooms, for right brains and left brains. The right brain (room) is more relaxed, where you can hang out in these comfy chairs, and the other one is all business.”
The Spring Grove, Pennsylvania native is working on Bartap, an app that focuses on streamlining the ordering process at bars, during periods of high volume.
“When you go in there you’ll actually be able to use the app to make your order and pick it up at a certain spot at the bar,” Luckenbaugh described.
Indeed Luckenbaugh has lofty goals in life, and they go above and beyond football. Asked who his role model in the technology/business world is, he responded with Linus Torvalds, the Finnish–American software engineer who created the Linux kernel, which laid the groundwork for operating systems such as the Linux os, Android and Chrome OS.
“He took an idea of an operating system that was cheap and efficient,” said Luckenbaugh.
“I always looked up to him because he was able to do something like that out of nothing, and I’ve always admired people who can build things like that.”
Luckenbaugh added that Linux is his favorite operating system. So will Kuhbander be the PK1 this week at Rutgers?
“Competition is for everybody. It makes good players great and great players better,” said Fitzgerald of the depth chart.
As for Kuhbander’s injury, Fitzgerald said his status is day-to-day. On Monday, Luckenbaugh was named Big Ten Special Teams Player of the Week.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, is currently a regular contributor to SB Nation, WGN CLTV and Chicago Now.
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