Connor Halliday broke another NCAA record, and he has more in sight.
The Washington State quarterback threw for a Division I-record 734 yards in a 60-59 loss to California on Saturday. The feat elicited little more than a shrug from the fifth-year senior, who said “it’ll be fun to look back on it when I’m 30 years old.”
That reaction is no surprise when freakish passing numbers are the norm in Mike Leach’s “Air Raid” offense.
Halliday already set a national record last season with 89 pass attempts against Oregon, and he’s within striking distance of the Division I records for passing attempts, completions and yards in a season.
The owners of those records are B.J. Symons (attempts and yardage) and Graham Harrell (completions) — both coached by Leach at Texas Tech.
Halliday broke the single-game record of 716 passing yards by Houston’s David Klingler in 1990 and came within 2 yards of the all-division mark by Sam Durley of Division III Eureka College in 2012.
Halliday increased his nation-leading average to 508.7 yards a game — 75 more than his closest competition and 155 yards over his 2013 average. His 250 completions and 369 attempts are 62 and 81 more than anybody else.
His six touchdown passes against Cal gave him a nation-best 26.
If he had been going against any other team, Cal’s Jared Goff would have been the star. Goff threw for 527 yards and five touchdowns in the win.
Some other notable statistics from the weekend:
NEW RUSHING LEADER: Wisconsin’s Melvin Gordon overtook Indiana’s Tevin Coleman for the national rushing lead. Gordon ran for 259 yards against Northwestern, his second 200-yard game of the season, and is averaging 174.2 yards. Coleman, who went for 150 yards on 17 runs against North Texas, is averaging 168.2.
TACKLE MACHINE: Arizona State free safety Jordan Simone matched the 2014 single-game high for tackles with a career-high 20 against Southern California. The last ASU player to record so many tackles was Mark Tingstad in 1988.
100 AND DONE: TCU kicker Jaden Oberkrom made his first four extra-point attempts against Oklahoma to extend his school-record streak to 100 in a row. Guess what happened on his try for 101? It was blocked.
RUNNING IT UP? Division III Mount Union set a school record with eight rushing touchdowns in a 75-0 victory over Capital in an Ohio Athletic Conference game. The Purple Raiders, rated No. 3 in their division and winners of 87 straight regular-season games, rushed for 491 yards and finished with 730 total yards. Their defense limited Capital to 60 total yards.
EXTRA POINTS: Kansas, Missouri and Boston College are yet to lose a fumble through five games. … Rutgers’ Kemoko Turay blocked his nation-leading third kick against Michigan. … Baylor is 5-0 in back-to-back seasons for the first time since 1916-17. … The Iowa State-Oklahoma State game featured five field goals. Interestingly, four came from 34 yards.
Leave a Reply