Tommy Tuberville

Early life and education

Tuberville was born and raised in Camden, Arkansas, one of three children of Olive Nell (née Chambliss) and Charles R. Tuberville Jr. He graduated from Harmony Grove High School in Camden in 1972. He attended Southern State College (now Southern Arkansas University), where he lettered in football as a safety for the Muleriders and played two years on the golf team. He received a B.S. in physical education from SSC in 1976. In 2008, he was inducted into the Southern Arkansas University Sports Hall of Fame and the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame.

Coaching career

Early career

Tuberville first coached at Hermitage High School in Hermitage, Arkansas. He was an assistant coach at Arkansas State University. He then went through the ranks at the University of Miami, beginning as graduate assistant and ending as defensive coordinator in 1993, winning the national championship three times during his tenure there (1986–1994). In 1994, Tuberville replaced Bob Davie as defensive coordinator under R. C. Slocum at Texas A&M University. The Aggies went 10–0–1 that season.

Ole Miss

Tuberville got his first collegiate head coaching job in 1994 at the University of Mississippi ("Ole Miss"). Despite taking over a Rebels team under severe NCAA scholarship sanctions, he was named the SEC Coach of the Year in 1997 by the AP.

At Ole Miss, Tuberville became involved in the movement to ban Confederate flags from the football stadium by requesting that the students quit waving them during the home football games. He said, "We can't recruit against the Confederate flag." Ole Miss's chancellor, Robert Khayat, ultimately placed a ban on sticks at football games, which effectively banned spectators from waving flags.

During his tenure, Tuberville was known as the "Riverboat Gambler" for his aggressive play-calling, especially on fourth down. His teams went 1–3 against Arkansas and 2–2 against in-state arch-rival Mississippi State in the annual Egg Bowl game. After the 1998 regular season ended, Tuberville said, "They'll have to carry me out of here in a pine box", in reference to not leaving to coach at another school. Less than a week later, it was announced that he was departing for Auburn.

Auburn

Tuberville left Ole Miss after the 1998 season to take the head coaching job at Auburn University in Alabama. At Auburn, he guided the Tigers to the top of the SEC standings, leading them to an SEC championship and the Western Division title in 2004. Under his direction, the Tigers made eight consecutive bowl appearances, including five New Year's Day bowl berths.

During the 1999 off-season, wide receiver Clifton Robinson was charged with statutory rape of a 15-year-old girl. Tuberville suspended Robinson from the team from March to August, when Robinson pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and was sentenced to 200 hours of community service. Tuberville subsequently punished Robinson by suspending him for the season opener, then allowed him to rejoin the team.

In 2004, Auburn went 13–0, including the SEC title and a win over Virginia Tech in the Sugar Bowl. Nine selectors, including six of the Massey Index selectors, named Auburn National Champions. Additionally, Auburn was the highest-ranked NCAA eligible team in final AP and Coaches polls after USC's bowl win was vacated. Tuberville was named college football coach of the year by the Associated Press, the American Football Coaches Association, the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, and the Walter Camp Football Foundation.

In 2005, despite losing the entire starting backfield from the unbeaten 2004 team to the first round of the NFL draft, Tuberville led Auburn to a 9–3 record, finishing the regular season with victories over rivals Georgia and Alabama.

Under Tuberville, Auburn had a winning record against its biggest rival, Alabama (7–3), and was tied with its next two most significant rivals, Georgia (5–5) and LSU (5–5). He was also 5–5 against Arkansas. He led Auburn to six straight victories over in-state rival Alabama, the longest win streak in this rivalry since 1982, the year Auburn broke Alabama's nine-year winning streak.

Tuberville established himself as one of the best big-game coaches in college football, winning 9 of his last 15 games against top-10 opponents since the start of the 2004 season. In 2006, his Tigers beat two top-5 teams that later played in BCS bowls, including eventual BCS Champion Florida. Tuberville had a 5–2 career record against top-5 teams, including three wins against Florida. But he developed a reputation for losing games when he clearly had the better team. Examples include a humbling 24-point loss to a 4–5 Alabama team in 2001 and a loss to Vanderbilt—the first time Auburn lost to the Commodores in over 50 years. After Auburn lost three straight SEC games in 2003, Auburn booster Bobby Lowder and Auburn president and athletic director contacted then Louisville head coach Bobby Petrino to gauge his interest in taking the Auburn job if Tuberville was fired. The press found out about the meeting, which occurred just before the 2003 Alabama game, and the episode has since been known as "JetGate".

Texas Tech

On December 31, 2009, Tuberville expressed interest in becoming head coach of the Texas Tech Red Raiders. The position was left open after the university fired Mike Leach. On January 9, 2010, Tuberville was named head coach, and he was introduced at a press conference the next day. On January 1, 2011, he became the second head coach in Texas Tech football history to win a bowl game in his first season—an accomplishment unmatched since DeWitt Weaver's first season in 1951–52. This was a 45–38 victory over Northwestern in the inaugural TicketCity Bowl.

On January 18, 2011, Texas Tech announced that Tuberville received a one-year contract extension and a $500,000 per year raise. The extension and raise gave Tuberville a $2 million salary through the 2015 season. Tuberville was responsible for the highest-rated recruiting class in Texas Tech history, securing the 18th-ranked recruiting class in 2011, according to Rivals.com and the 14th-ranked class in the country according to Scout.com.

On November 10, 2012, during a game against Kansas, Tuberville yanked the hat and headset off his graduate assistant Kevin Oliver. Immediately after the game, Tuberville said he was aiming for Oliver's shirt in an attempt to pull him off the field. Two days later, he apologized in his weekly press conference, saying he wanted to set a better example for his two sons, one of whom was on the team. Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby publicly reprimanded Tuberville, calling his act "unsportsmanlike".

Although Tuberville continued to run Leach's wide-open "Air Raid" spread offense, he was never really embraced by a fan base still smarting over Leach's ouster. According to a student on a recruiting trip to Texas Tech, Tuberville departed a recruiting dinner mid-meal and the next day accepted an offer to become Cincinnati's head coach. He left Texas Tech with an overall record of 20–17 and 9–17 in Big 12 conference play.

In 2025, Tuberville said he recruited Patrick Mahomes, who played at Texas Tech from 2014 to 2016, but Mahomes said that was not true.

Cincinnati

On December 8, 2012, Tuberville resigned as head coach at Texas Tech in order to become the 38th head coach at the University of Cincinnati. He signed a $2.2 million contract to coach the team. Cincinnati's athletic director, Whit Babcock, had previously worked with Tuberville at Auburn; the two had been friends for several years. On December 9, a Lubbock Avalanche-Journal article pointed out that Cincinnati is only 30 miles (50 km) from Guilford, Indiana, home of Tuberville's wife, Suzanne.

In 2013, his first season with Cincinnati, Tuberville led the Bearcats to an overall record of 9–4 and a 6–2 conference record. His 2014 team was also 9–4 overall, but this time earned an American Athletic Conference co-championship by virtue of their 7–1 league mark. Both years also saw bowl losses, in 2013 to North Carolina and 2014 to Virginia Tech.

On December 4, 2016, after a 4–8 season, Tuberville resigned as head coach of Cincinnati. He left Cincinnati with an overall record of 29–22 and 18–14 in AAC conference play.

TS Capital

After resigning from Auburn in December 2008, Tuberville formed a 50-50 partnership with former Lehman Brothers broker John David Stroud, creating TS Capital Management and TS Capital Partners, where he had an office and helped find investors. In February 2012, seven investors sued Tuberville and Stroud, saying they were defrauded of more than $1.7 million that they invested from 2008 to 2011. Tuberville's attorneys denied the allegations.

In May 2012, Stroud was indicted for fraudulent use of $5.2 million from various Auburn investment companies, including his partnerships with Tuberville; Tuberville was not charged. Tuberville said in court filings that he was also a victim, and had lost $450,000; he settled the investor lawsuit in October 2013 on undisclosed terms. In November 2013, Stroud pleaded guilty and received a 10-year sentence.

Tommy Tuberville Foundation

In 2014, Tuberville founded the Tommy Tuberville Foundation. Its website said its purpose was "to recognize and support organizations and causes that connect with the beliefs and values of the Tuberville family: assisting our military and veterans; awareness, education and prevention of health issues, particularly among women and children; and, education and community initiatives."

Through its first five years, the foundation raised $289,599 but spent just $51,658 on charitable causes, tax records showed. This rate of 18% is less than the 65% that the Better Business Bureau says ethical charities should spend on their causes. In 2020, the Associated Press called the Tuberville Foundation "a questionable charity that raises money but gives very little away". Foundation officials said the tax filings did not reflect volunteer labor and donated materials used to refurbish veterans' homes.

In 2020, The New York Times reported that Tuberville campaign and foundation officials "produced internal records for 2018 that showed nearly $20,000 was raised for a temporary project to provide a retreat for veterans. But the records raised bookkeeping questions, since they showed more than $61,000 of 2018 revenue, roughly twice what the charity reported to the I.R.S. that year".

In 2021, the Washington Post reported, the foundation "reported it had $74,101 in revenue and spent just 12 percent of that, or $9,000, while $32,000 went to administrative costs (including nearly $12,400 to pay off a truck the charity purchased in 2018 for $27,369)". By the end of 2021, the foundation's website had gone defunct.

In July 2023, a spokesperson for Tuberville said that the foundation had been under audit and had paused its activities, but that Tuberville was reforming it.

U.S. Senate

Election

In August 2018, Tuberville moved from Florida to Alabama with the intention to run for the U.S. Senate in 2020. In April 2019, he announced he would enter the 2020 Republican primary for the Senate seat held by Democrat Doug Jones. Tuberville's campaign was described as "low-profile," with few pre-scheduled campaign appearances or press conferences. He closely allied himself with President Donald Trump. Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer was a member of Tuberville's campaign staff.

Tuberville opposes the right to an abortion and favors repealing the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). He supports Trump's proposal to build a wall on the border with Mexico. Tuberville supports reducing the national debt through cuts to social programs, but opposes cuts to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. He dismisses the science of climate change, saying that the global climate "won't change enough in the next 400 years to affect anybody."

On March 3, 2020, Tuberville received 33.4% of the vote in the Republican primary, ahead of former United States senator and former attorney general Jeff Sessions, who received 31.6%. Because neither candidate won over 50% of the vote, a runoff election ensued.

On March 10, ahead of the runoff election, Trump endorsed Tuberville. Trump had been angered by Sessions's decision to recuse himself from the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections when Sessions was U.S. attorney general. In May 2020, Trump called Sessions "slime" for this decision. In campaign ads, Tuberville attacked Sessions for not being "man enough to stand with President Trump when things got tough." In the July 14 runoff, Tuberville defeated Sessions with 60.7% of the vote.

As the Republican nominee, Tuberville was heavily favored to win the election. He was endorsed by the National Right to Life Committee, America's largest anti-abortion organization. On November 3, he defeated Jones with 60.1% of the vote.

In an Alabama Daily News interview after the election, Tuberville said that the European theater of World War II was fought "to free Europe of socialism" and erroneously that the three branches of the U.S. federal government were "the House, the Senate, and the executive." He also said that he was looking forward to raising money from his Senate office, a violation of federal law. Tuberville's comments attracted criticism.

Tenure

Tuberville was one of six Republican senators to vote against expanding the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, which would allow the U.S. Justice Department to review hate crimes related to COVID-19 and establish an online database.

Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Tuberville claimed that Putin had ordered the invasion because Russia could not feed its people and required Ukrainian farmland. He inaccurately called Russia a communist country (Russia abandoned communism after the collapse of the Soviet Union).

In May 2022, Tuberville introduced the Financial Freedom Act of 2022, which would allow for the inclusion of cryptocurrency in individual retirement accounts.

Speaking at a Trump rally in Nevada on October 8, 2022, Tuberville claimed that Democrats are "pro-crime", "want to take over what you've got", and "want reparation [sic] because they think the people that do the crime are owed that". These remarks were widely condemned as inaccurate and racist; for example, the NAACP called them "flat out racist, ignorant and utterly sickening".

Tuberville was among the 31 Senate Republicans who voted against final passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, telling reporters, "This bill does not go nearly far enough to reform our broken budget".

In June 2024, Tuberville called Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy a "dictator" and said that Russian president Vladimir Putin "doesn't want Ukraine. He doesn't want Europe. Hell, he's got enough land of his own. He just wants to make sure he doesn't have United States weapons in Ukraine pointing at Moscow."

In June 2025, Tuberville drew backlash after appearing on Benny Johnson's show, where he called people in urban areas "inner-city rats" who "live off the federal government" and called on President Trump to "send them back home".

After taking office in January 2021, Tuberville joined a group of Republican senators who announced they would formally object to counting electoral votes won by Democratic president-elect Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. The objections were part of a continued effort by Trump and his allies to overturn his defeat in the election.

Committee assignments

Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry

Subcommittee on Commodities, Derivatives, Risk Management, and Trade

Subcommittee on Food and Nutrition, Specialty Crops, Organics, and Research

Subcommittee on Rural Development, Energy, and Credit

Committee on Armed Services

Subcommittee on Personnel (Chairman)

Subcommittee on Seapower

Subcommittee on Strategic Forces

Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions

Subcommittee on Education and the American Family (Chairman)

Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety

Committee on Veterans' Affairs

Select Committee on Aging

2026 gubernatorial campaign

On May 27, 2025, Tuberville announced that he would not seek a second term in the United States Senate and would instead run for governor of Alabama. Facing no major challengers, Tuberville won the Republican nomination on May 19, 2026.

Tuberville has faced several challenges to his eligibility for the gubernatorial office, with opponents alleging that he does not satisfy a seven-year Alabama residency requirement set out in the Constitution of Alabama.

Personal life

Tuberville married Vicki Lynn Harris, also from Camden, Arkansas, and a graduate of Harmony Grove High School, on December 19, 1976. They later divorced. In 1991, Tuberville married Suzanne (née Fette) of Guilford, Indiana; they have two sons. His elder son, Tucker, played as a quarterback while he was coach at Texas Tech, before following him to Cincinnati. Tucker then walked-on at Auburn, where he was used as a scout team quarterback during his three seasons there, and made his sole appearance for the team in the fourth quarter of a 56–34 win over Idaho.

Tuberville has a brother, Charles.

Tuberville invested $1.9 million in GLC Enterprises, which the Securities and Exchange Commission called an $80 million Ponzi scheme. He lost about $150,000 when the business closed in 2011.

At Auburn, Tuberville participated in the Auburn Church of Christ.

Tuberville's interests include "NASCAR, golf, football, hunting and fishing, [and] America's military". He enjoys country and western music. Tuberville is also a fan of Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao.

In August 2023, The Washington Post reported that campaign finance and property records indicate that Tuberville lives in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, instead of Auburn, Alabama, as his office claims, and has for almost two decades. Despite filing taxes as a resident of Alabama in 2018, Tuberville voted that year in the Florida election. The United States Constitution requires senators to live in the state where they are elected, but does not provide a minimum length of residency; Alabama requires a candidate to reside in the state for just one day to run for office.

Head coaching record