With Gardner Minshew rooting for him on the Washington State sideline, quarterback Anthony Gordon broke one of his passing records.
Gordon connected with Easop Winston Jr. on a 33-yard score early in the fourth quarter for his eighth touchdown pass of the game, breaking Minshew’s school record. It was Gordon’s fourth TD pass to Winston and gave the Cougars a 55-46 lead with 10 minutes, 8 seconds remaining in the game.
Gordon added his ninth touchdown pass minutes later, finding Max Borghi for a 65-yard score that put Washington State up 63-60. The nine touchdowns are the most in Pac-12 history.
At that point, Gordon was 40-of-60 for 556 yards with the nine touchdowns and two interceptions.
Minshew, a 2019 sixth-round pick who now is the starting quarterback for the Jacksonville Jaguars, threw for seven touchdowns in the Cougars’ 69-28 win over Arizona in November 2018.
Gordon became the first FBS quarterback with nine touchdown passes in a game since Houston‘s Case Keenum, who did it against Rice in 2011. Keenum had been the only quarterback in the past 15 seasons to accomplish the feat.
David Klingler, also an ex-Houston quarterback, holds the FBS single-game record of 11 touchdown passes, which he set in 1990.
Gordon’s eighth touchdown pass increased his season total to 21. He joined Geno Smith (2012) as the only FBS quarterbacks over the past 15 seasons with at least 20 pass TDs through their team’s first four games.