Oregon QB has great chance to break two NCAA passing records in 2024

In what will likely be his only season as a member of the Oregon Ducks football program, quarterback Dillon Gabriel has the potential to become the NCAA's all-time leader in career passing yards and career touchdown passes if he throws for at least 4,353 yards and 31 touchdowns during the upcoming season.

Currently, the record is held by former Houston Cougars quarterback Case Keenum, who threw for 19,217 yards and 155 touchdowns in five seasons between 2007-11.

In order for Gabriel to break these two notable passing records during Oregon's 2024 regular-season schedule, he will need to throw for at least 363 yards and 2.6 touchdowns per game.

But if the Ducks can extend their season by playing in the Big Ten Championship, a bowl game and/or multiple matchups in the new 12-team College Football Playoff, then Gabriel will get even more opportunities to break the two NCAA all-time records.

Working in Gabriel's favor is the fact that Oregon is already expected to be one of the 12 teams in this season's College Football Playoff and that the school's previous starting quarterback, Bo Nix, wound up throwing for 4,508 yards and 45 touchdowns last season.

Nix attempted 470 passes for the Ducks during the 2023 campaign under current Oregon offensive coordinator Will Stein. With Stein still running the offense, the Ducks are likely going to continue to pass the football at a high frequency in 2024, which is only good news for Gabriel's quest to become the NCAA's all-time passing leader.

Gabriel has averaged a little more than 33 pass attempts per game in his college career, so he should be able to handle the workload that he will be given by Oregon this year.

This upcoming season will be the sixth of Gabriel's college career. Before transferring to Oregon at the end of last year , he spent the 2022 and 2023 seasons as Oklahoma's starting quarterback and, before that, he was Central Florida's starting signal-caller for three years from 2019-21.

Gabriel's college career has been able to extend to six seasons after an injury turned his 2021 season into a redshirt year and because he was also given another year of eligibility due to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

So, in what will probably be the final season of his college career, Gabriel has a tremendous chance to cement his name as one of the all-time great passers in NCAA history.