Oregon State's Sean Mannion An Unheralded Record-Breaker

If you were to tell a casual college football fan that a quarterback in the state of Oregon would break Matt Barkley’s all-time Pac-12 passing yards record this weekend, they’d probably say “Really? I didn’t think Marcus Mariota threw for that many yards.” And they’d be right and wrong at the same time. Because Mariota doesn’t have that many yards, and the QB who will break that record is Oregon State’s Sean Mannion.

Entering Saturday’s game against the Cal Bears, Mannion is 194 yards away from breaking Barkley’s record (12,327 to 12,134). But because Mannion doesn’t play for the flashy Oregon school and the Beavs aren’t a top team, the chase has been mostly ignored by college football fans who don’t migrate to Reser Stadium on a regular basis.

But it hasn’t really been a chase, not from Mannion’s point of view nor his head coach, the incomparable Mike Riley. The Beavs have a better chance to win football games if Mannion throws the ball, so Mannion throws the ball. Brandin Cooks, the recipient of many a Mannion toss, didn’t win the Biletnikoff award for best college wide receiver and then get drafted in the first round by the New Orleans Saints on accident, you know.

But the QB who helped make Cooks an award winner and an NFL player doesn’t get the attention. Mannion’s 2013 season included more than 4,600 yards passing and 37 TD passes, career highs that led the conference as well. And he wasn’t even named Pac 12 first- or second-team QB. He got honorable mention. Barkley would have won the honor in a walk with those numbers.

Incredibly, Mannion has been held under 220 yards passing just twice in his career and both of those games have occurred in the past six weeks, first against USC and then last week against Stanford. In both of those contests Mannion was rattled enough that he threw for under 125 yards, astounding work by those respective defenses.

There’s little chance of Mannion being held under 220 yards again on Saturday. Actually, there’s little chance that he’ll be held under twice that, considering the Beavs are playing Cal. The Bears have made a habit of making all Pac-12 QBs look like the next coming of, well, Matt Barkley, actually.

Give Mannion his day in the sun and let him enjoy it. It might not be his record for long. Washington State’s Connor Halliday is about 1,000 yards behind Mannion, which means he could conceivably catch him in three weeks. Seriously.