Tyler Shough launches a pass during his standout season at Louisville, showcasing the arm talent that’s drawn NFL attention. (Photo courtesy of University of Louisville)
CHANDLER – Three colleges in seven years, two broken collarbones and a broken fibula.
That’s hardly an inviting resume for a college quarterback hoping to hear his name called this week when the NFL Draft gets underway.
But Tyler Shough, a 25-year-old signal caller from Chandler, has the fighting spirit of a warrior who has been challenged time and time again to get to this point.
Shough (pronounced “Shuck”) is 6-foot-5 and weighs 219 pounds while possessing a rocket of an arm, but none of those attributes are what stand out the most. His character, work ethic and leadership are the characteristics that jump out according to his parents and anyone who has ever coached him.
“He’s always been a kid who earns his worth,” said Glenn Shough, Tyler’s father. “Nothing was ever given to him, as a quarterback at Hamilton (High School). He was the first junior to start since the ‘90s and he had to go earn it. When he went to Oregon, he had to go earn it, Texas Tech his junior year his coaches were very transparent and told him you got to earn it, and he did. So his intrinsic motivation is very apparent.”
Tyler Shough in action at Hamilton High School, where his rise from a determined freshman to a top recruit first began. (Photo courtesy of Heather Hackett)
Shough’s schedule leading up to the draft has been jam-packed with visits with NFL teams all over the country, but his mindset has never wavered.
“The perspective that I’ve had and been talking about with the coaches is that I don’t feel like I am owed anything,” Shough said. “I know I have to go earn it regardless of where I get picked and everywhere I have been I have had to go out and compete and that’s the part I really enjoy.”
Shough lit the desert on fire his senior season at Hamilton in 2017, when he threw for 3,071 passing yards and 30 passing touchdowns.
Dick Baniszewski, Shough’s high school coach, witnessed Shough blossom from a young freshman into a top recruit in the country headed to play football for the University of Oregon. Baniszewski and Shough had to overcome hardships at Hamilton. Baniszewski was thrust into an interim head coaching position for the 2017 season due to unforeseen circumstances, a position he stepped down from after the year and has not gone back to since.
“His senior year when all of the issues that went down at Hamilton were advertised through the media, I think Tyler’s maturity and him being recruited so highly that year took some of the heat off the other stuff,” Baniszewski said, referring to a hazing incident that rocked the community.
“To have a guy like that who is one of the kids who was more mature than most kids, it was great to have him as a leader so that he could relate some of the things we were trying to do with the program in general to the athletes so they got that view from another one of their peers.”
Shough joins an illustrious line of Valley athletes who have made it to the NFL, including Queen Creek’s Brock Purdy, who played for Perry High in Gilbert before being selected by the San Francisco 49ers with the final pick (262 overall) of the 2022 NFL Draft. The friendship between Shough and Purdy was memorialized in a picture of the two as they posed in tuxedos before their high school proms.
When Brock Purdy, left, and Tyler Shough took this photo at high school prom, did they have a conversation about playing against each other in the NFL? https://t.co/hQRVUK9yVz
— Cronkite News: Phoenix Sports (@sportscronkite) April 23, 2025
It has been evident to Baniszewski since Shough’s high school career that there is nothing that can keep him down.
“I think he saw that the hard work and commitment pays off if you hang in there. Even when you keep getting knocked down you just got to keep getting back up,” said Baniszewski, who is still Hamilton High’s assistant principal. “You’re going to get tired of hitting him before he gets tired of getting hit.”
Shough followed a long and winding road throughout his college career, playing at Oregon, Texas Tech and Louisville across seven years. He also underwent two different surgeries throughout his college football career. Even with all of the hits Shough took, Baniszewski said his former player has always found a way to get back up.
“I feel a lot more equipped to enter the NFL because of the things I’ve been through,” Shough said. “It’s not what happens to you, it’s how you react to it. Being a backup at Oregon to Justin Herbert for two years to then finally be starting in the COVID season and not playing that great and then transferring to Texas Tech, breaking my collarbone, not having to get surgery on it and then breaking the same collarbone the first time I get hit the next year in the first game and getting surgery to come back and play in six weeks and then the next year I get hip-dropped tackled and break my fibula.”
Through all the hardship, Shough kept his positive mindset and finished his career strong at Louisville.
“You go through a lot of rehabbing, climbing back up, and doing everything you can and it all gets taken away from you,” Shough said. “But you can’t sit and wallow about it, you have to get back to work, and as a human I thought a lot of times this probably is not going to work out but I just had faith it was going to work out regardless of the situation, and thankfully I’ve gotten those opportunities.”
Shough bounced back in a huge way in his seventh and final collegiate season in 2024 after transferring to Louisville, throwing for a career high 3,195 passing yards with 23 touchdowns and only six interceptions. His high-level play along with intangibles earned him attention from NFL scouts.
Now, as the NFL Draft gets underway from Green Bay beginning Thursday, Shough hopes to experience his biggest dream come true when he hears his name called. There is one person in particular who Shough credits for his ability to overcome even the hardest adversity – his mother, Dana, who has battled unimaginable hurdles.
“January will be 20 years since I was diagnosed with stage-four breast cancer and given nine months to live,” Dana said. “Tyler was 5-years-old and my youngest son was 2-years-old and it rocked my world, but I’ll tell you what. Sometimes you have to go through things in life that test you and it’s how you respond to those things that define your character.”
Tyler Shough, left, and his brother, Brady, stand by their mother Dana during her battle with breast cancer, the fight that helped shape Tyler’s unbreakable mindset. (Photo courtesy of Dana Shough)
Shough witnessed his mother fight for her life at such a young age, installing a mentality in him to never give up. He carried this attitude through his football journey.
“We are Shough strong, it’s either fight or flight and we are fighters,” Dana said. “I think our kids, Tyler included, have learned that when things get rough in life, you don’t give up. You have to find that fighter mentality.”
Though she could have never seen it in the moment, Dana’s experience battling breast cancer was the driving force that turned her son into a mature leader who will never quit.
“To see her go through that at a young age and learn how to fight and go through adversity definitely paralleled my college journey,” Shough said. “Being able to be around my parents and the impact they had on me, I would not be where I am today without them.”
Dana is able to see the intense struggles she went through during her battle with breast cancer in a new light 20 years later.
“You have to find that fighter mentality,” Dana said. “When you’re going through it, you don’t necessarily understand how it’s a life lesson, but now that our kids are all grown adults and Tyler has gone through adversity with his three injuries at Texas Tech, I think my journey has taught Tyler that, you know what, stuff’s going to happen to you in life, but you got to handle it and how do you handle it?”
Shough’s projected landing spot in the NFL has fluctuated throughout the draft process with a variety of teams reaching out and having him work out for them. This has caused one more challenge for Shough as he has spent the last few weeks criss-crossing the country to find which team will serve as his new home.
“I’ve been to eight so far,” Shough said. “This past week I flew to Cleveland for Monday and then Tuesday evening I was on a direct flight to New York City to visit the Giants and then I had a flight out of Newark and the ticket didn’t go through at 10 p.m. going to New Orleans so I had to Uber to LaGuardia and fly to New Orleans at 6 a.m. and do the visit with the Saints all day and then that night fly back to Dallas, and from there it’s to Seattle and then Las Vegas.”
Although many teams have expressed interest in Shough, two suitors stand out, according to NFL Draft expert for USA Today, Tyler Dragon.
“I believe he is going to be a second-round pick,” Dragon said. “To maybe a team like the Cleveland Browns or New York Giants who are quarterback-needy. I believe he is probably the fourth-best quarterback prospect in this year’s draft.”
Dragon believes there is a lot to like with Shough’s play on the field and sees him as a quarterback who is NFL ready.
Tyler Shough celebrates a touchdown at Oregon and leaps into his teammates’ arms during one of many defining moments in his college career. (Photo courtesy of University of Oregon Athletics)
“He bounced around from program to program, but at Louisville, he really came into his own,” Dragon said. “I think he’s a good processor of throwing the football and I do think he’s an accurate passer. He can manage games well enough to win football games.”
It is not often that a 25-year-old quarterback who played six years in college is expected to go this high in the NFL Draft. Dragon sees Shough’s extra collegiate experience as a good thing that has allowed him to evolve into the player he is today.
“I do think a lot of that is attributed to his overall experience, playing at the college football level,” Dragon said. “He saw a lot of different defenses, and played in multiple different systems. He has a good knowledge of playing the quarterback position, and it would not surprise me at all if he was an early Day Two pick.”
While those closest to Shough may not be draft experts, they have been there for every step of his career and believe in him more than anyone else.
“You’re going to get 6-foot-5, 220 pounds, 4.6 40-yard-dash time who throws probably the best deep ball I have ever seen,” Baniszewski said. “You’re going to get a guy who is a seasoned quarterback who has played in multiple systems who can adapt and adjust and you’re going to get that character guy, that leader in the locker room and you’re going to have an enthusiastic guy who is willing to do whatever it takes to win football games.”
The biggest concern about Shough throughout the draft process has been his injury history. NFL general managers are investing large sums of money when it comes to selecting their draft choices. Dragon, however, believes with the way Shough plays the game, his durability should not be a concern.
“The quarterback position and the way he plays it as a pocket passer, you don’t have to rely too much on that athleticism,” Dragon said. “He relies more on his arm, his accuracy, his ability to read defenses, his ability to throw receivers open and just manage football games, so the injuries, they’re not too, too big of a concern to me because of the position he plays and the style in which he plays.”
Shough will be watching the NFL Draft in Scottsdale with his family and his wife Jordan, with whom he celebrated his one-year wedding anniversary earlier this month. Together they will await the announcement on where the next chapter in Shough’s story will be written.
“Draft day is going to be super emotional and such a happy moment with everybody who’s been involved,” Shough said. “ I’m really excited for it, I can’t lie, but I know that the work is just gonna continue to build.”