College Football

Fun with college football stats: Matt Barkley, our most tragic hero

Which college football quarterbacks did the most with the least?

Mar 1, 2013, 5:25 PM UTC

Jeff Gross

Matt Barkley had a rough senior season. And it's too bad, because he performed well most of the time. The only issue was that Barkley was often performing his best when the rest of his team was not, as Lane Kiffin has pointed out.

In fact, 2012’s Barkley had the highest quarterback rating for a college football passer whose team trailed by 15 or more points in all of the mighty cfbstats.com’s six-year database.

Here’s a list of the best-performing college football quarterbacks under these dire circumstances since 2007. Tragic heroes, all of them.

The sample size is minuscule for most, but it’s okay to have fun with numbers.


Name	School	Year	Attempts while down by 15 or more	Rating	Comments
Matt Barkley	USC	2012	34	246.25	You could write a senior thesis on how Matt Barkley is college football's Sisyphus.
Nathan Enderle	Idaho	2009	36	211.91	Oh, you just knew Idaho was going to make this list.
Willie Tuitama	Arizona	2008	27	204.7	Pretty sure 80 percent of these passes went to Gronk.
David Johnson	Tulsa	2008	23	200.5	When you play offense like Tulsa, it figures that someone would be on this list.
Darron Thomas	Oregon	2008	15	193	Remember when Oregon trailed in football games?
Shane Austin	Hawaii	2010	16	190.38	Down 40? Throw deep. Up 40? Throw deep. Doubt strategy changes much in Hawaii.
Max Hall	BYU	2007	19	187.84	Even BYU's stats here are boring.
Graham Harrell	Texas Tech	2007	52	186.32	This list wouldn't be complete without a Mike Leach quarterback.
Colby Cameron	Louisiana Tech	2012	56	184.56	Might be the exception to the rule. I'm not sure you can apply despair to a Sonny Dykes offense down 35, much less 15.
Jimmy Clausen	Notre Dame	2009	19	183.86	Put him on the Heisman watchlist!
Case Keenum	Houston	2008	117	182.2	Houston went to a bowl game this year.
Jeremiah Masoli	Oregon	2009	28	181.43	Chip Kelly doesn't let this happen much anymore.
Austin Boucher	Miami (Oh)	2010	14	180.14	MACtion doesn't stop happening when the game is over.
Jordan Rodgers	Vanderbilt	2012	23	180.01	That Vandy was down by 15 so seldom that only 23 attempts met criteria is the story here.
Matthew McGloin	Penn State	2010	21	179.13	This season did not exist.
Jeremy Young	USM	2007	17	179.03
David Fales	San Jose State	2012	41	175.58	Fales was also top-20 when down by 8-14 points and top-10 when down by a score. He is the guy who falls behind in Scrabble to horde the Xs and Qs and Zs.
Bryn Renner	North Carolina	2012	40	174.92	The most UNC name ever.
Ryan Nassib	Syracuse	2012	61	174.87	Falling behind by 15 points is a rite of passage for a Syracuse QB. Nassib handled it well.
Giorgio Morgan	Kent State	2010	17	173.3
Casey Pachall	TCU	2011	28	173.14	Gary Patterson probably eats a horned frog everytime his team falls behind by this much.
Jacory Harris	Miami (FL)	2008	23	172.9	He was actually just as good at falling behind by two touchdowns or more, so it was like a recursive loop.
Jonathan Perry	UAB	2012	59	172.76
Geno Smith	West Virginia	2011	22	172.3	Anyone noticed a bunch of air raid quarterbacks on this list?
Carson Coffman	Kansas State	2010	41	171.01
Jeff Tuel	Washington State	2010	103	166.52	Never has so much been sacrificed for so little.
Name	School	Year	Attempts while down by 15 or more	Rating	Comments