‘The Spring King' Luis Perez, the most unlikely UFL QB, won't give up on NFL dreams

New York Times

11-04-2025

It's hard to talk Luis Perez out of anything, especially professional football.
When a 10-year-old Perez had fun at a birthday bowling event, he put his mind to the sport, bowled 12 perfect games as an amateur and nearly joined the Professional Bowlers Association before college. When his football coach at Texas A&M-Commerce dominated Perez at the pool table, Perez came back after Christmas break and began beating his coach with bank shots he learned on YouTube.
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So it didn't matter that Perez didn't play football in high school and had never been a quarterback. He taught himself throws (again, on YouTube), willed his way into college football and five different stints on NFL teams. He has been cut five times. But he won't stop.
Perez is known as 'The Spring King' because he has played in nearly every spring pro league, trying to keep his NFL dream alive. He has the unique honor of having thrown the first touchdown pass in USFL 2.0, XFL 3.0 and UFL history. In some ways, the nickname is a backhanded compliment because he's still here and not there, on an NFL roster.
Almost every spring, he plays well, gets an opportunity in an NFL training camp and then gets cut. Now 30, he's back with the Arlington Renegades of the UFL, again looking for that final big break. Through two games, he again leads the league in passing yards. He got himself this far and won't stop just yet.
'I know I can play at the highest level,' he said. 'I know with the right fit and the right opportunity, I'm going to excel. When you're that close, when you get to the NFL and play in preseason, you're right there, you see what's going on. Like, I belong here. I'm gonna keep going until I get it.'
Every step of Perez's journey could be its own story.
Growing up in San Diego, the son of a Mexican professional soccer player, he tried to join a youth football league but wasn't picked. His dad convinced the league to make an extra team of all the undrafted players, like a scene out of 'Little Giants.' The players used bouncy castles from his dad's party rental company as tackling dummies. The team lost its first game 50-0, Perez wrote in his new autobiography.
His high school ran a wing-T offense, so he was put at tight end instead of quarterback. He quit to focus on bowling and put football behind him. Until, as a senior, friends on the football team convinced him to attend the senior day game. When he saw players run out of the tunnel, he got goose bumps, realizing he had to give football another shot. Perez unsuccessfully asked if he could join the high school team for the last two games.
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But Perez paused his bowling career, saying he would have plenty of time for that when he was older, and he went to YouTube to study throws that winter and spring. He connected with former NFL quarterback Akili Smith, who was the uncle of a friend on the high school team. They met up at parks around San Diego. To Smith's surprise, this late-stage trainee had something.
'He didn't know footwork, stance, but he was always a natural thrower,' Smith said. 'I never really had to fix his throwing mechanics. Him getting on YouTube to learn the position, that's a testament to him wanting to be great.'
Smith put in a word with Southwestern Junior College coach Ed Carberry. It took some convincing that this bowler, who had no game film, was worth a look. But as a junior college, Carberry took on all comers. Perez says he arrived late, so there weren't any helmets or pads that fit him. He wore a lineman's helmet and oversized pads until he got something that fit.
'I didn't give a crap what they were making fun of me for,' Perez said. 'I just wanted to play ball.'
He was the ninth-string quarterback, not even high enough to get reps.
'He was getting the end of the bunch and lower than that,' Carberry said, 'because he wasn't ready to play at all.'
But players began dropping out or getting hurt. And Perez was quickly getting better. By the end of camp, he was the No. 2 quarterback, and when the starter got injured in Week 3, in came Perez. The nerves took over. His first snap as a real quarterback was a delay of game. But he rebounded with a back-shoulder fade touchdown pass that surprised everyone. He was off and running.
Perez often takes family members to the stadium or an open field to help him visualize plays. His mom caught curl routes at Southwestern. His wife, Brenda, still quizzes him on plays from a new playbook.
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'OK, I haven't seen that,' Carberry said. 'Everybody says they work, but not everybody is willing to put in that kind of time.'
A broken leg ended Perez's first season, but he showed up to practice the next week in a cast, believing he could play. The next season, Perez led Southwest to a junior college division bowl championship, throwing 18 touchdowns and just three interceptions. NCAA college interest began to pick up. Perez said UC Davis offered, until the coaches realized his credits wouldn't transfer. Kansas, Oklahoma State and Old Dominion had walk-on spots, but he wanted a scholarship.
So Perez turned back to the internet. Have any Division II quarterbacks made the NFL? He came across Dustin Vaughn from West Texas A&M. Vaughn's coaches were by then at Texas A&M-Commerce (now called East Texas A&M), so Perez reached out to get a look. Commerce coaches saw him during a swing through California junior colleges and offered.
Perez redshirted his first season in Texas, finally able to learn without pressure. When Commerce played Ferris State in the Division II playoffs, Perez drove up to Michigan just to be on the sideline. By then, coach Colby Carthel knew Perez would be the team's next starting quarterback. Perez shined as a junior, throwing for more than 3,300 yards with 32 touchdowns and five interceptions. The Lions went 11-2 and reached the second round, losing to Grand Valley State.
Everyone went home for Christmas, but not Perez. He and Brenda drove 10 hours through a blizzard to Kansas City to watch the national championship game his team wasn't in. Why? He wanted to feel the energy. He wanted to understand the layout of the stadium. He wanted to visualize the moment.
'I told her we're going to be here next year,' he said.
It helped that the Lions opened the next year against North Alabama, which was playing in the game. Some extra scouting. To convince Brenda, Perez agreed to weeks of extra dish duty. Perez called Carthel from the stadium to say the team would be here in a year.
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'He gave me more confidence than I gave him,' Carthel said. 'That's who he was. He studied everything he had. He researched footballs on that trip and had us change our footballs because national champions used (another kind).'
At Commerce, Perez set a strict no-partying rule for himself, with a twist: If someone invited him to a party, he would decline and instead do a workout. That could be footwork drills, work in the weight room, throwing or something else.
'In that moment, I'd have to go work out or go to the field,' Perez said. 'Even if it was 11 p.m., and I was going to turn the lights off.'
As a senior, Perez created a 4 a.m. group workout, an idea he got from offseason training with Drew Brees in San Diego. It started with two players. It got up to 28 by the time the season started. To this day, Perez still does a 4 a.m. workout multiple times a week.
It all paid off. Perez led Commerce to the 2016 Division II national championship. He won the Harlon Hill Trophy, the Division II equivalent of the Heisman Trophy, throwing for more than 5,000 yards.
'Luis was a spark, a leader everybody got behind,' Carthel said. 'That was special.'
Perez hoped his success and relative upside would lead to him being drafted in 2018. That dream didn't materialize. Somehow, neither did an undrafted free agent contract. He had to go through a local camp tryout with the Los Angeles Rams before getting signed. His work ethic quickly made an impression.
'A couple times he kind of pissed me off because he beat me into the office,' coach Sean McVay joked in 2018. 'He's already in there studying tape. I'm like, 'What the heck are you doing in here already, man?' Really impressive.'
Perez played in the preseason and was signed to the practice squad but was cut in September and began a cycle that continues to this day.
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In 2019, he joined the Alliance of American Football on a tip from Chris Mortensen and played well before the league shut down due to financial issues. He signed with the Philadelphia Eagles but was waived. Then he signed with the Detroit Lions and was waived again.
In 2020, he joined the new XFL, began as a backup but took over a starting job, only to see the league shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2021, he joined The Spring League and led the Jousters to the league championship game.
In 2022, he went undrafted in the new USFL but signed with the New Jersey Generals and led the team to a 9-1 record while splitting reps. The Rams signed him again and then released him a month later.
In 2023, he joined the third iteration of the XFL and led Arlington to a league championship, earning MVP honors in the title game and being handed the award by Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson. Teams called, but a broken foot led to no NFL deal.
In 2024, he returned with the Renegades in the UFL and led the league in passing yards and touchdowns with just four interceptions. The Los Angeles Chargers signed him, played him in the preseason and then cut him.
So he's back in the UFL again, leading the league in passing again. He keeps coming back, keeps swinging, even at 30.
'He's as driven as anyone there is,' said Bob Stoops, the Renegades coach and a College Football Hall of Famer. 'He has a unique story. There'll never be another one like it.'
'I'm so close,' Perez said. 'Why am I going to stop right at the finish line? That's my thought process. I tasted the NFL last year. I'm back on teams' radars. I know I can do it.'
Perez doesn't have another job. He trains full time and owns a rental property that brings in some income. After every season, he asks himself if he still enjoys waking up at 4 a.m. to work out and study. If his body feels good. If he's still playing at a high level. If he can still financially do this. To this point, he still can.
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Smith knows the feeling. The former No. 3 NFL Draft pick in 1999, Smith decided after a 2007 season in the Canadian Football League to call it a career.
'It's hard to walk away,' he said. 'I was very emotional in Canada, but I knew it was time to move on. For Luis, it's not over yet, because he still has the will to prepare, his mind is where it needs to be, and he's having success.'
The odds of Perez getting back are low. He knows that. But so have the odds for everything else Perez has done, and he has willed it all into existence. Bowling. College football. Pro football. He just keeps showing up. He's made it this far. How could he not believe in himself until the very end?
'He just outworks, outthinks, outprepares and outwills the competition,' Carthel said. 'He's been picked to be the backup a thousand times. Every time I look up, he's winning championships.'