It can take years for a quarterback to establish himself in college football. That’s not the case with these 10 signal-callers, who seized their opportunity early and amassed historic passing yard totals during their college careers.
Here are the 10 quarterbacks with the most passing yards in NCAA D-I history.
10 CFB Players With The Most Passing Yards of All Time
Baker Mayfield was fine at Texas Tech, but transferring to Oklahoma changed his career for the better. (Photo by David Stacy/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Mayfield played in eight games as a freshman with Texas Tech in the Big 12 and had a solid debut season with 2,315 yards and 12 touchdowns against nine interceptions. Mayfield felt his play earned him the starting position for the following year and was discouraged when there still was a QB competition, so he opted to transfer to Oklahoma in 2014. However, Mayfield was forced to sit out that season and wouldn’t suit up until 2015 because of it.
The year off didn’t hurt Mayfield even a little, though, as he threw for 3,700 yards and a conference-leading 36 touchdowns, while also finishing first in the Big 12 in yards per pass attempt (9.4) and completion percentage (68.1). This was somehow Mayfield’s “worst” season at Oklahoma. In 2016, he finished with 3,965 passing yards and 40 touchdowns, and he bumped that completion percentage to a D-I-best 70.9%. The following year, in 2017, he led the Big 12 in touchdowns, completion percentage and yards per attempt, and he threw for a career-high 4,627 yards en route to winning Big 12 Championship Game MVP and his second consecutive Heisman Trophy.
9. Kellen Moore: 14,667
Kellen Moore started off hot as a freshman and never cooled. (Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)
As a freshman, Moore played in 13 games for Boise State and threw for a Western Athletic Conference-leading 3,486 yards, while also ranking first in completion percentage (69.4%), touchdowns (25) and yards per attempt (8.6). He then threw for 3,536 yards in his sophomore season, with a WAC-leading 39 touchdowns. That number jumped once again to 3,845 yards in 2010 during his junior season. Moore capped off an already impressive college career with a fantastic senior campaign, leading the WAC in completions (326), passing yards (3,800), touchdowns (a career-high 43) and yards per attempt (8.7), while leading all of D-I football in completion percentage (74.3%).
8. Ty Detmer: 15,031
Ty Detmer amassed gawdy passing yard totals in his final three seasons with BYU. (Photo by Richard Mackson /Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)
Detmer starred for BYU from 1988-91, and despite finishing with what still stands as the eighth-most passing yards in FBS history, he somehow could have done even more. That’s because Detmer’s freshman year saw him throw for just 1,252 yards despite appearing in 12 games; his completion percentage was a mere 54.2%, and he had just 153 attempts, splitting duties with starter Sean Covey. The job was all his the following year, however, and Detmer exploded for 4,560 passing yards, 32 touchdowns, a 64.3 completion percentage and 11.1 yards per pass attempt. The first three of those led the WAC, while his yards per attempt led all of D-I football.
Detmer would win the Heisman Trophy in 1990 owing to an FBS-leading 5,188 passing yards to go along with 361 completions, 41 touchdowns and 9.2 yards per attempt, which proved to be more than enough to offset his 28 interceptions. While his 1991 wasn’t quite as good, Detmer still produced 4,031 passing yards, the most in D-I, and finished third in the Heisman Trophy vote.
Transferring to Oregon made all the difference for Bo Nix. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
Nix starred for Auburn from 2019-21, but his passing numbers were not quite the stuff of legends while he was there. Nix played in 13, 11 and 10 games in his three seasons in the SEC, picking up 7,250 passing yards during that run.
When he transferred to Oregon for the 2022 season, though, Nix’s passing numbers exploded. His completion percentage jumped from 2021’s then-career-best 61% to a Pac-12-best 71.9%, and he threw for 3,593 yards with 29 touchdowns — 13 more scores than his previous career-high. His 2023 was his finest season, with Nix finishing third in the Heisman Trophy voting thanks to an FBS-leading 364 completions, a D-I-record 77.5% completion percentage, 45 touchdowns and a Pac-12-best 9.6 yards per attempt that led to 4,508 passing yards. In just two years with Oregon compared to three with Auburn, Nix threw for 851 more yards, good enough for seventh all-time.
Extra years of eligibility helped Hartman keep on adding passing yards. (Photo by Michael Wade/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
It took Hartman some time to get going, but a redshirt in 2019 and the extra year of eligibility from the COVID-19-impacted 2020-2021 school year granted him ample chances to catch up. In his first five years with Wake Forest, Hartman threw for a combined 12,967 yards, peaking in 2021 and 2022 when he collected 4,228 and 3,701 passing yards to go along with 39 and 38 touchdowns, respectively.
He would then transfer to Notre Dame for the 2023 season, and netted another 2,689 passing yards despite just 301 passing attempts and 191 completions. A career-best 8.9 yards per pass attempt ensured that those completed passes were efficient ones. The end result had him sneak past both Detmer and Nix on the all-time list.
5. Graham Harrell: 15,793
If not for a backup freshman season that limited his passing output, who knows where Graham Harrell would have ended up on this list? (Photo by Sharon M. Steinman/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
Hartman didn’t quite reach Harrell, though, despite the Texas Tech signal-caller putting up all of 422 passing yards in six games as a backup in his freshman season. Harrell was a monster for his next three campaigns, though, and one of the best quarterbacks in all of D-I football. Harrell had an FBS-best 412 completions in 2006, then managed 512 in 2007 before coming back down to earth with 442 completions in 2008. All three seasons were good enough for No. 1 in the FBS. Harrell threw for 4,555, 5,705 and 5,111 passing yards during his last three years with Texas Tech, respectively, with the latter two the leading total for not just the Big 12 but D-I football as a whole.
4. Landry Jones: 16,646
Consistency was the name of the game for Landry Jones. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
Jones never had a season with any Heisman Trophy recognition, but thanks to throwing for 3,197 yards as a freshman with Oklahoma, he didn’t need a year like that to make it to fourth on this list. He followed up his first season with an FBS-best 405 completions and a Big 12-leading 4,718 passing yards; it also served as a career-high for Jones in both categories. He was still throwing for a ton of yards in his junior and senior years (4,463 in 2011 and 4,267 in 2012), despite peaking as a sophomore. Jones averaged 314 passing yards per game for his entire caree.
3. Timmy Chang: 17,072
No one in FBS history threw a pass more often than Timmy Chang. (Photo by Stephen Dunn/Getty Images)
While Chang was Hawaii’s starting quarterback for nine games in 2000 as a freshman, he tore a wrist ligament in 2001 and was limited to just three games. He did manage to compile 1,100 passing yards in those three games, however, and picked up another year of eligibility because of it. That extra year was put to great use.
Chang would return as Hawaii’s starter in 2002, and lead the WAC in passing yards with 4,474. In fact, he threw for over 4,000 passing yards in his final three seasons, with another 4,199 in 2003 and 4,258 in 2004. Chang not only ranks third in FBS history in passing yards, but he also has the most passing attempts (2,436) of any D-I quarterback, is tied for the most seasons of 4,000 or more passing yards (three) and is second in total offensive yards (16,910).
Dillon Gabriel made the most of his additional opportunities to keep racking up passing yards. (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)
Gabriel spent the first three seasons of his college career at UCF, where he amassed 8,037 passing yards despite the broken clavicle that prematurely ended his 2021 season. The fact that he threw for 3,653 yards and an American Athletic Conference-best 3,570 in his first two years helped make up for that, however.
Gabriel transferred to Oklahoma in 2022, where he once again threw for over 3,000 yards in both of his full seasons with the Sooners. He then used his final year of eligibility at Oregon, where he threw for a career-high 3,857 yards. That said, Gabriel finished with nearly 19,000 passing yards and the most passing touchdowns (155) in FBS history.
Yards, yards, and somehow even more yards explain the career of Case Keenum. (Photo by Rick Dole/Getty Images)
Keenum picked up an extra year of eligibility after tearing his ACL as a junior in 2010, but even without the 636 yards that he accumulated in the three games of that season prior to his injury, he would have had enough passing yards for second all-time. Keenum threw for 2,259 yards as a freshman with Houston in seven starts (273 attempts), and took hold of the starting job in 2008. He went on to throw for 5,020 yards, leading Conference USA in that category, as well as in completions, attempts and completion percentage.
His performance in 2009 was even better. His 492 completions, 70.3 completion percentage, 44 touchdowns and 5,671 passing yards were all tops in FBS. His 5,671 passing yards are also tied for the fourth-most in a D-I season.
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