Jayden Daniels reached for the stars last season at Cajon of San Bernardino and passed for more than 5,000 yards and 62 TDs. Photo: Willie Eashman.
After completing state record updates for team winning streaks, losing streaks, team scoring and league win streaks, we’re jumping ahead to single season passing records for quarterbacks. We now have every reported QB in state history with 40 TD passes or more for one season and every reported QB in state history with 3,400 or more yards for one season. You can’t get these lists anywhere else. Go inside for names of those newly added from last season.
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The first high school quarterback in California history to throw for 3,000 or more yards for one season was junior Pat Haden from Bishop Amat of La Puente in 1969. Haden, the former NFL QB and former athletic director at USC, led that team to the CIF Southern Section championship game by passing for 3,008 yards. Today, with all of the pass-first, spread-style offenses, it seems like hot shot QBs pass for 3,000 yards in six or seven weeks.
The current state record, according to our own extensive Cal-Hi Sports state record lists (remember, the CIF or MaxPreps or anyone else does not do this work) is 5,737 yards set in 2013 by then-junior Jake Browning of Folsom.
Graduated QB T.J. Campbell from St. Bernard’s (Eureka) had more than 4,000 yards and 57 TD passes last season. Photo: Prep2Prep.com.
Last season, junior Jayden Daniels from Cajon of San Bernardino went over 5,000 yards for just the sixth time in state history. Daniels passed for 5,131 yards in 16 games as the Cowboys went to the CIF Division 2AA state bowl game where they lost to Serra of San Mateo. Of the six times that a quarterback from California has gone over 5,000 yards, four of those times that quarterback was from Folsom. That’s three times by Browning and once by his predecessor, Tanner Trosin, in 2011.
In addition to Jayden, three others from last season have gone onto the all-time state list at 4,000 yards or more. They are Kaiden Bennett of Folsom (a junior who will be back this season), T.J. Campbell from St. Bernard’s of Eureka and JT Daniels from Mater Dei of Santa Ana. JT, now at USC, also went over 4,000 yards for what is now considered his junior season. When he did it in 2016, he was classified as a sophomore.
The overall season list has been cut off at 3,400 yards, which means that current junior Jaden Casey of Calabasas just missed at 3,397 yards in 12 games as the Coyotes’ sophomore signal caller from last season. Those who have been added, however, are Levi Taylor (Victorville Silverado), Blake Kirshner (Santa Clarita Christian), Austin Maciel (Oxnard Rio Mesa), Colt Nelson (Madera), Chance Nolan (Menifee Paloma Valley), Nathan Lamb (Tulare), Alec Trujillo (Fresno San Joaquin Memorial), Ryan Hilinski (Orange Lutheran), Jeff Miller (Murrieta Mesa), Miguel Aguero (Montebello Schurr), Trent Tompkins (Fresno Central), Jake Simmons (Rohnert Park Rancho Cotate), Dante Chachere (Fresno Clovis West), Bryce Young (Los Angeles Cathedral) and Jonathan Martin (Culver City). In addition to Casey, those returning in 2018 are Kirchner, Trujillo, Hilinski, Tompkins, Chachere and Young. Young has since transferred to Mater Dei.
For the Gold Club post of updated single season passing yards all-time state leaders, CLICK HERE.
Regular season passing yardage lists are still maintained even though the original reason by record book founder Nelson Tennis for starting them alongside the overall lists was because for much of Northern California in the 1970s there were no section playoffs. Teams simply played 10 games for the regular season and were done.
The state record for regular season passing yards, like overall, is held by a QB from the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section, but it’s not someone from Folsom. That would be Jason Lee of Modesto Downey from the 2009 season. His team didn’t get into the playoffs that season, but was as pass-happy as they come. Lee passed for 3,972 yards in 10 games. Cajon’s Daniels was last year’s regular season leader with 3,507 yards.
For the Gold Club post including every California QB reported with 2,900 passing yards or more in a regular season, CLICK HERE .
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One of our favorite QBs from the 1980s was Santiago Alvarez from Franklin of Los Angeles. That’s mainly because we were lucky enough to have been there in person when he set the state single season touchdown pass record in 1989. Santiago, in fact, led the entire 1980s in California with 52 TD passes for one season. His record-breaking night is written about in our book “High School Football In California” that is going on sale on August 7.
Here’s some other decade-by-decade touchdown pass leaders for California high school football: 1970s Pat Haden (Bishop Amat) with 42; 1990s Robert De La Cruz (L.A. Cathedral) 65 in 1999; 2000s Dano Graves (Folsom) 52 in 2009; 2010s Jake Browning (Folsom) 91 in 2014.
Browning’s 91 TDs, of course, remains the state and national record. For this update of the state record files, we have added a whopping 22 quarterbacks from the 2017 season, which is all of them who had 40 TD passes or more. The list is led by Jayden Daniels from Cajon of San Bernardino, who had 62 in 16 games and is now shown in a tie for sixth on the all-time list. Daniels will be back for his senior season this year.
Folsom’s latest quarterback, Kaiden Bennett, threw for 57 TDs as a junior and also is returning. He goes into the state record book at 57, however, with a graduated senior from last season, T.J. Campbell from St. Bernard’s of Eureka. Others who had more than 50 were JT Daniels of Mater Dei, Brevin White from Paraclete of Lancaster and Levi Taylor from Silverado of Victorville. Another junior who almost reached 50 was Blake Kirshner of Canyon Country Santa Clarita Christian. He had 48 TD passes last season.
For the Gold Club post including every California QB reported with 40 TD passes or more for one season, CLICK HERE.
Regular season all-time state lists also are maintained because there are many talented quarterbacks around the state each season who just are not fortunate enough to be on teams that even in this day and age don’t get to be in any playoff games. The greatest quarterback in NFL history, San Mateo Serra grad Tom Brady, started only 10 games in his junior season at Serra and 10 as a senior for that reason.
In 1989, Ryan Hancock from another CIF Central Coast Section school, Monta Vista of Cupertino, set a NorCal regular season record for TD passes with 41 in a year in which his team didn’t get to the playoffs and it was a record that stood for more than 20 years.
For these updates, we have now included every QB in state history reported with 33 TD passes or more for one regular season. To see that Gold Club post, CLICK HERE.
Mark Tennis is the editor and publisher of Cal-Hi Sports. He can be reached at markjtennis@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow Mark on the Cal-Hi Sports Twitter handle: @CalHiSports
