He’s Armed With a Familiar Name and a Familiar Game : Football: Quarterback Tom Luginbill, leader of Palomar College’s prolific offense, thinks he is ready to graduate. But to where?

Tom Luginbill is the star quarterback of the nationally recognized community college football program.

Al Luginbill--the star’s dad--is the head coach of the nationally recognized--good or bad--Division I football program.

The kid thinks he can step into a Division I program and start.

His current coach, Tom Craft (respected as a quarterback guru), isn’t so sure.

Al wants what’s best for his boy.

The boy thinks he’s being recruited by his dad.

Dad says he isn’t recruiting his son.

The kid is considering leaving Craft, whom he calls the best coach he’s ever had.

The coach will support him, but disagrees with the decision.

Should he stay or should he go?

As the football spirals.

Maybe the life of Tom Luginbill isn’t so complex, but maybe it is when you are talented and have a name that gives you automatic connections.

Luginbill passed for 3,086 yards this season at Palomar College. He’s the second freshman to pass for more than 3,000 yards, and he envisions passing for 4,000 yards next year--if he stays at Palomar. And if he matches this year’s performance, he’ll become the all-time leading passer in community college history.

And San Diego State will at the same time be losing its starting quarterback, David Lowery.

It’s safe to say that people will scratch their heads if San Diego State Coach Al Luginbill didn’t recruit the all-time leading community college passer in his own back yard.

Even if it is his son. And how do you lose a recruiting war for your son?

It is something both parties have considered.

“San Diego State is a far-off option in relationship to him,” Al Luginbill said on Wednesday while making some recruiting visits of his own. “I think it would put him into a fish bowl, a Catch-22. That spot is so scrutinized here, and with your father the coach, you’re under a microscope. It’s a situation that would be very difficult for him. Somewhere else, he could be his own person.

“He may be able to handle that, but the risk factor of finding out may not be in his best interests. Or San Diego State’s.

“We would have three quarterbacks ahead of him (the two there now and the freshman recruit) and I don’t think that would be in his best interest. If he was sophomore this year, you might look at it differently, but that’s not the case.”

Tom Luginbill, almost 19, is under a different impression: “If Lowery’s gone and the best guy is going to play, I’d love to be in a recruiting situation with them.

“If I were to ever start for them, I would have to be letter perfect. Both of us would constantly be under the microscope. But it could also turn out to be the greatest situation in the world.

“I think (Al) is a little bit wary of it. He is recruiting me, but he doesn’t want it to happen unless I want it to happen. But he doesn’t feel any pressure to recruit me. If I told him not to recruit me, he wouldn’t, and I would tell him to tell people that.

“At this point, yeah, I want to be recruited by him, but I don’t know if that’s in my best interest right now and neither does he. But next year, maybe. Lowery’s going to be gone and that whole thing’s going to be wide open.”

Tom--and Al--might not have to worry about it. Tom wants to explore all his options right now. He already has enough transferable units that make him eligible to go on to a university, putting him in the unusual position of being able to leave a community college after only one year.

He is taking recruiting visits to Utah and Arizona, but he says he’s in no hurry to leave Palomar, either. His only condition: “If I go somewhere (after this year), I want to go someplace where I can be The Guy.”

He has been The Guy at Palomar, and will get one more chance to show how much his hard work and Craft’s tutelage have paid off when Palomar College takes its 9-1 record to Costa Mesa for Saturday’s Orange Coast Classic against Mt. San Antonio College (8-2) at Orange Coast College (7 p.m.). There should be plenty of recruiters in the stands, probably a few from the Western Athletic Conference, too.

“I’d rather not play against him,” Al Luginbill said, “but that would be his choice.”

Luginbill seems like the right kind of quarterback for the WAC, though his senior season in high school consisted of 26 completions in 49 attempts for 473 yards, two touchdowns and an interception. At Palomar, Luginbill attempted 47 passes in one game. His best day surpassed his entire year at Torrey Pines, a 22-for-38 performance for 469 yards, four touchdowns and two interceptions against Grossmont. And he knows it could have been better.

“My numbers could have been astronomical,” he said. “That’s the one thing about this offense, if you get on a roll, nobody can stop it. It’s scary. We don’t huddle, the defense is stuck with its personnel, and we dictate what happens. It can get ugly. I played in only two full games. We could have put a lot of people in the 60-point club and a few people in the 70s. I was always out by the end of the third quarter.”

He speaks the truth. Palomar, ranked eighth nationally, averaged 41.2 points and 525 yards per game. Luginbill completed 204 of 326 passes (62.2%) for 3,086 yards, 22 touchdowns and 11 interceptions.

“Physically and with the knowledge of the game, I think I can (step into a Division I program),” Tom Luginbill said. “I don’t know about the responsibility of leaving home, but football-wise, I think I could.

“If I do find a program where I feel I can make a contribution right away, that’s the only way I would give a thought to leaving (Palomar).”

It’s a thought that bothers Craft, who has coached a string of national passing leaders who were far more touted than Luginbill, and who all told him they wished they could play a second year under his direction but didn’t have another year of eligibility left.

“If he did come back, he probably would be the most successful junior college quarterback of all time,” said Craft, himself a former SDSU quarterback.

“But the statistics aren’t the important thing, it’s what he’s going to benefit. . . . It may be meticulous, but I think a guy in that position needs that.

“I don’t think he’s ready, personally. I think there are things he can do to better himself, and there are things I have confidence I can teach him that other people can’t maturity-wise, strength-wise, leadership-wise.”

Counters Luginbill: “I don’t think you can learn everything. Things have gone too good for me to have learned everything. I haven’t faced enough adversity.

“I’m not looking to leave. I just want to see what’s out there.”

To be continued.