In setting Arizona career passing record, Noah Fifita joins exclusive loyalist QB club
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Entering this season, it was a given that Noah Fifita would become the all-time passing yardage leader at Arizona. He officially broke Nick Foles’ mark in the fourth quarter of Saturday night’s 42-17 win over Northern Illinois.
Along the way Fifita became the 168th player in FBS history to reach 10,000 passing yards, the third this season along with Josh Hoover of Indiana and Rocco Becht of Penn State. However, those former Big 12 QBs did so at a different school than where they began their careers, each transferring into the Big Ten for their final seasons.
Fifita has gotten to 10K all in one place, bucking the trend of players moving from school to school during the transfer portal era despite plenty of opportunities to do so.
“So many other people have jumped ship and taken the money or gone to something different, or would look for something new, or the grass is always greener,” UA coach Brent Brennan said after Saturday’s game. “But that guy stayed here and watered the grass here and made it into something truly special.
“The whole country should be talking about this kid, not just based on how he plays, but who he is and the choices he’s made throughout his career here. Like, that’s rare.”
How rare?
Since 2021, when the NCAA did away with having to sit out a year following a transfer, 46 FBS quarterbacks finished their careers with at least 10,000 passing yards. Of that group, only 22 accomplished this without switching schools, and most were not in power conferences.
The last to do it before Fifita was Cade Klubnik, who finished with 10,123 yards in 49 games with Clemson from 2022-25. He was one of five QBs to get to 10,000 career yards last season, but the other four had split their time between two (or three) schools.
Among those to get to 10K last year was Carson Beck, who after beginning his career at Georgia—and being part of back-to-back national championship teams—passed on the NFL Draft for a reportedly large guaranteed payday at Miami, with whom he reached the CFP title game in January.
With at least nine games left at the UA, and hopefully at least one more in the postseason, Fifita will continue to climb the all-time yardage list. In his 37 starts he’s averaged 265.6 yards per game, putting him on pace to finish with more than 12,000 yards.
The last quarterbacks to hit that mark all at one power-conference school? Kenny Pickett (Pittsburgh) and Brock Purdy (Iowa State), both in 2021. If Fifita gets to 13,000 he’ll be the first of his kind since Washington State’s Luke Falk and Oklahoma State’s Mason Rudolph, who each finished their careers in 2018 with more than 14,000 passing yards without ever switching schools.
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