Warren Ruggiero

Warren Ruggiero is in his first season as senior analyst for the University of Iowa football program. Ruggiero has over three decades of coaching and developing quarterbacks, along with extensive offensive coordinating experience at the collegiate level.

Ruggiero spent the last 11 seasons as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Wake Forest. The native of Glen Rock, New Jersey, coordinated the most prolific offenses in Wake Forest history six of the last seven seasons and was a Broyles Award finalist in 2021.
 
Under Ruggiero, the Deacons set nearly 400 school records including marks for points scored, points per game, total offensive yards, first downs and passing yards from 2018-22. Additionally, Wake Forest has produced the second-most points in the ACC over the last eight seasons.

Ruggiero helped orchestrate not only one of the most potent offenses in the history of the program, but also one of the most prolific in the history of the ACC in 2021. That season, Wake Forest scored a program-best 574 points and averaged a school-record 41 points per game. That point total ranks 43rd in modern FBS history and the fourth-most in ACC history. In the College Football Playoff Era, Wake Forest was one of 10 teams to eclipse 500 points scored in a single season.

From 2017-22, Ruggiero and the Deacons were the only football program in the ACC to average at least 30 points per game each year, had the ninth highest rated scoring offense in the country, ranked 12th in total touchdowns scored (333) and scored the most points over a six-year period in school history (2,667).
 
Wake Forest’s 1,367 points scored during the 2020-22 period is the highest-scoring three-year period in Deacon history. Additionally, Wake Forest were the only ACC school to score more than 1,000 points in 2021-22 combined (1,043) and their scoring average of 38.6 points per game ranked sixth during that time. A key to the scoring success was the passing attack in the 2021 and 2022 seasons. Wake Forest was one of six schools to throw for more than 8,000 yards in that time and nearly 600 yards more than any other ACC team.
 
Individually, Ruggiero coached QB Sam Hartman, to second-team All-ACC honors in 2021 and third-team all-conference accolades in 2022. Hartman was named Wake Forest’s bowl game MVP in the 2021 Gator Bowl and in the 2022 Gasparilla Bowl. Ruggiero led Hartman and the Demon Deacons offense to re-write the Wake Forest and Atlantic Coast Conference record book. 
 
Hartman, who was named the 2022 Brian Piccolo Award winner by the ACC, set the conference’s record for career touchdown passes with 110 in his storied career. Specifically in 2022, Wake Forest tossed a program record and FBS-leading 43 touchdown passes. 
 
Individually, wideout A.T. Perry earned first-team All-ACC honors in 2021 and 2022 and owns the program for touchdown receptions (28). Additionally, that total ties for seventh in ACC history. Perry found the end zone a combined 26 times in that two-year span, including a school-record 15 scoring receptions in 2021, which tied for second among all FBS wideouts in 2021 and 2022.
 
Hartman and Perry finished their Wake Forest careers as one of the top QB-WR duos in conference history. The pair combined for 27 touchdowns, which tied for the second most in ACC history. Perry ended his career ranked third in program lore in career receiving yards (2,662) and sixth in receptions (171).  
 
Ruggiero was an offensive coordinator at six universities prior to Wake Forest and has tutored quarterbacks for 32 years at the college level. His offense has finished in the top 10 in the country in either total offense or scoring offense at all six stops. Ruggiero’s units have finished in the top six in the country in passing offense at the last four stops. He has coached an All-American QB at five of his last six coaching jobs.
 
Ruggiero is a 1988 graduate of the University of Delaware, where he played quarterback and served as a graduate assistant while earning both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in physical education.
 
Ruggiero and his wife, Jennifer, have one daughter, Emma.