College football’s top QB performances? One Big 12 team owns the spotlight
American football has origins in a ground-and-pound game, centered around physically dominating your opponent and out-muscling the competition.
While this element never disappeared, as trench play is still as important as ever, the flair of the passing attack took over college football in the 1990s and 2000s with the rise of Air Raid offenses and high-powered aerial assaults.
Looking at the 10 players with the most passing yards in a single game in FBS history, all but one came in 1990 or later. However, another notable trend is evident: only one team has more than one entrant.
The Texas Tech Red Raiders not only have more than one player in the top 10, but they have four, coming between 2003 and 2016.
Here are the top 10 players with the most passing yards in a game in FBS history. pic.twitter.com/9Hy3b8dhvi
— FOX Sports (@FOXSports) August 4, 2025
Mike Leach, a disciple of Hal Mumme and the orchestrator of some of the most prolific passing offenses in college football history, was the head coach for three of Texas Tech's four names: B.J. Symons (661 passing yards, fifth, 2003), Graham Harrell (646 passing yards, seventh, 2007), and Cody Hodges (643 passing yards, eighth, 2005). He was also at the helm when Connor Halliday of Washington passed for 743 yards in 2014, which ranks second all-time.
Symons' all-time performance came in a win against Mississippi State in September 2003 when he tossed six touchdowns in a 661-yard outing. He set Big 12 and Texas Tech records while going 44-for-64 through the air.
Hodges threw for 643 yards in October 2005, leading a 13th-ranked Texas Tech team over Kansas State 59-20. Harrell, meanwhile, did not find the same luck. He threw for 646 yards in a 49-45 loss to Oklahoma State in September 2007, losing on a game-winning 55-yard touchdown with 97 seconds to go. It was Tech's first loss of the season.
The biggest performance of them all, though, came from Patrick Mahomes, who threw for an FBS record 734 yards in 2016 against Oklahoma in one of the most touted Big 12 games of all time. Mahomes and Sooners quarterback Baker Mayfield combined for 1,279 passing yards, 12 passing touchdowns, and 1,708 yards of total offense. The Red Raiders lost 66-59.
The 2016 game between Baker Mayfield and Patrick Mahomes when they were in college pic.twitter.com/Er7jvHEUxQ
— Jay Cuda (@JayCuda) September 21, 2023
With 819 total yards of offense (85 rushing yards from Mahomes), he had one of the single most dominant performances in college football history. However, it was not enough to usurp a strong Oklahoma team, led by Mayfield, who went on to win a Heisman Trophy. Ironically, Mayfield was a former Texas Tech quarterback himself, walking on in 2013.
While Leach was not the captain for the highest single-game passing performance in college football history, his impact on Texas Tech and college football was undoubtedly a factor in Mahomes' 734-yard explosion.
His fingerprints were all over the game, not just in the offense the Red Raiders ran but even in the head coach himself — Kliff Kingsbury, a former Texas Tech quarterback who played under Leach.
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-43389ae7766a84cbb8a6c33939d17968.jpeg "Jordan Epp")
Jordan Epp is a journalist who graduated from Texas A&M in 2022 and is passionate about telling stories, sharing news, and finding ways to entertain people through the medium of sports. He has formerly worked as a writer and editor at The Battalion and The Eagle, covering football in College Station, Texas, and served as the managing editor for PFSN.
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