Oregon’s Bo Nix set an NCAA record with his 54th career start — most among quarterbacks — as he started Saturday’s 38-24 win over Washington State. Nix’s mark puts him in the clear of former quarterbacks like Boise State’s Kellen Moore, Texas’s Colt McCoy, Washington’s Jake Browning and Northwestern’s Clayton Thorson. Notre Dame’s Sam Hartman is the only active quarterback with 53 starts.
Nix is in his second season as the Ducks’ starter after transferring from Auburn, where he emerged as a star in 2019 as the SEC Freshman of the Year and started 34 games in three seasons. He started all 13 games during his debut season with the Ducks and all seven of this year’s games. Despite the Pac-12 being loaded at quarterback, he is the most efficient of the league’s signal-callers with a league-best 79% completion rate (min. 15 passes) and a 17-to-1 TD-to-INT ratio.
Helping Nix achieve NCAA history was a 2020 season that did not count towards eligibility clocks due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With five games left in the regular season plus, presumably, at least one postseason game, Nix will have the opportunity to start at least 60 games during his career.