Move that bus!
For nearly a decade, the phrase became familiar to Americans watching ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. It was delivered by Ty Pennington, the craftsman and television personality who helped design and construct dramatic home transformations.
Now there is another Ty Pennington building something of his own.
This one is a civil engineering major, one of the most accomplished returning quarterbacks in the FCS, and the leader of a Northern Arizona offense that has reached new heights over the past two seasons.
With a sly smile, NAU’s Pennington admits the name still gets a reaction.
“Yeah, sometimes I get confused looks when people see my name is Ty Pennington,” he said.
The comparison is easy but fitting. Both Penningtons design, construct, and bring an overall vision to life. The Lumberjacks’ version simply does his work with a football in his hands, a defense shifting in front of him, and 10 teammates awaiting his direction.
For Pennington, every successful play begins much like an engineering project: with a sound foundation, an understanding of each component, and a commitment to following the process (and game plan).
“If you skip over steps while you’re engineering, the bridge is going to fall down,” Pennington said. “If you skip over steps being a quarterback, you probably won’t be very successful in operating.”
Few quarterbacks in the country have built a résumé as efficiently as Pennington has at NAU.
As a junior in 2025, he completed 251 of 382 passes for 3,116 yards and 19 touchdowns while throwing only four interceptions. He ranked among the FCS leaders in nearly every major passing category, and his averages of 259.7 passing yards and 275.6 yards of total offense per game both ranked in the top 10 nationally.
Pennington can do damage on the ground as well. He rushed for 191 yards and two touchdowns in 2025 after running for 437 yards and seven scores the previous season. When a play breaks down, he is willing to attack open space and absorb a hit.
But his greatest improvements have come before the snap by identifying leverage, recognizing pressure, and placing the offense in the right design.
That understanding was not always there.
When Pennington arrived at Division II Pittsburg State, he said he did not fully understand base coverages or why an offense attacked a defense in certain ways. He understood the basic concepts but was still far from where he needed to be. Under head coach Brian Wright, he began learning the position from the ground up.
Wright’s teaching started with the fundamentals, then added layer after layer.
Pennington’s knowledge expanded with each season, giving him the confidence to process more information and assume more responsibility.
“You’re never at the same level,” Pennington said. “You’re always getting better.”
That developmental relationship began before Pennington even had much of a recruiting profile.
A three-year starter at Charles Page High School in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, Pennington finished with 6,455 career passing yards and 54 touchdowns. Yet playing college football did not become a serious pursuit until the summer before his senior year.
He attended camps, worked with a quarterback trainer for the first time, and hoped one program would see enough to believe in him.
Wright did.
The Pittsburg State coach attended Pennington’s final high school game, then called the next day. Pennington was on a golf course with friends when he received his first college offer.
Other opportunities followed, including a chance to walk on at Oklahoma State, where his sister had played softball. But Wright had established the strongest connection.
“He was the one who showed me the most love, the most attention,” Pennington said. “We had a genuine connection beyond football.”
Pennington redshirted in 2022 then appeared in 13 games for the Gorillas in 2023. He completed 46 of 69 passes for 447 yards, six touchdowns, and one interception while adding 359 rushing yards and four scores.
When Wright accepted the NAU job, Pennington faced another blueprint decision. He could remain at Pittsburg State, explore other programs, or follow the coach who first believed in him.
The opportunity to stay with Wright, combined with a path to compete for the starting job, brought him to Flagstaff. NAU also offered something Pittsburg State did not: a civil engineering degree.
Pennington probably would have committed without seeing the campus, but he made the trip anyway. From the moment he arrived, everything fell into place.
Then he went straight to work.
In his first season as NAU’s starter, Pennington completed 65.1% of his passes for 2,288 yards, 13 touchdowns, and only two interceptions. He was named the 2024 Big Sky Newcomer of the Year and immediately established himself as one of the league’s most efficient quarterbacks.
His second season produced another substantial jump. Pennington earned All-Big Sky honorable mention recognition, landed on the Walter Camp FCS Player of the Year Watch List and was selected as one of five team captains.
He threw for a career-high 366 yards and accounted for four touchdowns at Southern Utah, earning Big Sky Offensive Player of the Week honors. He shared the award again after producing 286 yards and three touchdowns against UIW and later threw a career-high four touchdown passes against Cal Poly.
The production reflects a player who has continued to refine both the science and the art of the position.
Pennington and NAU’s staff have studied NFL quarterbacks, including Jared Goff, Drake Maye, and Josh Allen, breaking down their throwing mechanics and identifying movements that fit his game. He has worked to eliminate wasted motion, create more power, and become more consistent.
He has also taken a deeper dive into defensive structures, studying coverages, gap responsibilities, pressure indicators, and the subtle clues defenders reveal with their alignment.
The result is greater freedom at the line of scrimmage. As Pennington’s trust with the coaching staff has grown, so has his authority to check the offense into a better play. The goal is not to change every call but to recognize when the original design no longer fits the structure in front of him.
That is engineering, too.
“There’s a process behind each one, or the finished product isn’t going to work,” Pennington said. “There’s trust between our coaching staff and me, but also among our players that, whatever is called, we’re going to get the job done.”
Pennington has applied the same discipline off the field. He is a two-time Big Sky All-Academic selection and received NAU’s Scholar-Athlete Award in 2025. His transfer from Pittsburg State delayed his graduation by a year and a half, but he remained in civil engineering and expects to graduate in the spring.
He tries to schedule his most time-consuming classes during the spring and lighten the load during football season, although he jokes that there are not many easy courses in engineering. He’s been busy with a documentary crew that has been following his role as a quarterback and a student-athlete at NAU.
The challenge has forced him to become more intentional with his time. It has also reinforced a lesson that shapes nearly every part of his life: results cannot be separated from the work required to produce them.
“You can’t wish to have a good result without going through the process,” Pennington said.
Pennington, outside of football, also enjoys fishing, hiking, golf, and occasionally playing guitar. He and his fiancée, Micah, have known each other since seventh grade and now live in Flagstaff with two French bulldogs.
Micah also helps with preparation, quizzing Pennington on scouting reports.
“I’ll get questions about jersey numbers and sometimes responsibilities. She’s a great help,” Pennington said.
Pennington’s ultimate goal is to play in the NFL, but he understands that opportunity will be built through what NAU accomplishes first. He is quick to note that “individual recognition follows team success, not the other way around.”
The Lumberjacks are not constructing their season around watch lists or individual awards. Pennington said the goals are clear: win the Big Sky and win a national championship.
“We’re striving for two trophies,” he said, “and the rest will follow.”
It is an ambitious design, but Pennington’s career has never been built with shortcuts. He went from a late-blooming recruit with one offer to a Division II backup then to the Big Sky Newcomer of the Year and one of the most productive quarterbacks in the FCS.
Entering his final season at NAU, he has the experience to see the entire field, the freedom to adjust the plan, and the patience to trust each step.
The other Ty Pennington became famous for revealing what could happen when a vision, a crew, and a deadline came together.
Northern Arizona’s Ty Pennington is still building. And when the Lumberjacks are ready to reveal the finished product, he hopes it comes with two trophies out front.
