Nick Foles’ place as the best quarterback in Arizona Wildcats history was already secure. He was already a tremendous leader and teammate.

What the last couple games of Foles’ college career did was enhance his status as one of the best to ever play the position in this conference.

Let’s start with the big one: Nick Foles is the most accurate passer in the history of the Pac-12.

Matt Leinart set the old record by completing 807 of 1,245 passes during his USC career for a completion percentage of 64.8%. Foles completed 933 of 1,396 attempts for a career completion percentage of 66.8%.

Not only did Foles attempt 151 more passes but Leinart operated behind USC’s all-world line (with a monster running game) while the Arizona QB was usually running for his life and/or getting punished.

(For the record, Stanford’s Andrew Luck has one last game to try and pass Foles. Luck has completed 66.4% of his careers passes on 363 fewer attempts.)

Here are the other Pac-12 records Foles now owns:

Pac-12 Record	Who, When	Old	Nick Foles
Total Offense per Game, Season	Ryan Leaf, WSU, 1997	325.7	352.6
Passing Yards per Game, Season	Cody Pickett, Wash, 2002	342.9	361.2
Completions, Season	Willie Tuitama, ARIZ, 2007	327	387
Completions, Career	Carson Palmer, USC, 1998-2002	927	933

As far as the Arizona record book, Foles set fire to it, put the ashes inside a rocket and blew it up again. Here are all the school records in the possession of #8:

Arizona Record	Total
Completions, Career	933
Completions, Season	387
Passing Yards, Career	10,011
Passing Yards, Season	4,334
Passing Touchdowns, Career (tied)	67
Passing Touchdowns, Season (tied)	28
Completion %, Career	66.8%
Completion %, Season	69.1%

One he doesn’t hold is the single game completions record but the list of best individual games in UA history is pretty amusing:

	Player	Comp	Year	Vs
1	Willie Tuitama	42	2007	at Cal
2	Nick Foles	41	2011	at USC
3	Nick Foles	40	2009	Stanford
4	Nick Foles	39	2009	at Wash
5	Willie Tuitama	38	2007	at Wash
6	Nick Foles	37	2011	at Ok. St.
7t	Nick Foles	35	2010	OSU
7t	Nick Foles	35	2011	at Colo
7t	Nick Foles	35	2011	at ASU
10t	Nick Foles	34	2011	NAU
10t	Nick Foles	34	2011	Oregon
12	Nick Foles	33	2011	ULL
13t	Nick Foles	32	2010	at Toledo
13t	Nick Foles	32	2010	USC
13t	Nick Foles	32	2010	Okla. St.
13t	Nick Foles	32	2011	at Wash
17	Jason Johnson	31	2002	at Cal

Yes, the Wildcats were trailing in a lot of those contests but Foles was just as good if not better when the game was on the line. The USC game in 2009. Iowa and Cal last year. ASU this year (with a final-pass assist from Bryson Beirne). Foles produced the game-winning memories to go along with the gaudy stats.

All that said, there will always be a hint of bittersweetness when we look back on Foles’ Wildcat career. The greatest quarterback in school history and his teams were only able to go 14-18 in his 32 starts. How many years have Arizona fans said, “If we only had a quarterback”? Pick any three-year span in the Dick Tomey era. Wouldn’t you give four of George Malauulu‘s vowels to swap in Nick Foles?

So Cat fans continue to dream of the perfect convergence of quarterback and supporting cast. Until then, remembering the past three years of Foles flinging the ball around isn’t a bad way to pass the time.

The Most Accurate Quarterback in Pac-12 History wore Red and Blue.

- – - – -

Scott Terrell wishes he could throw the deep out. Huck it on Twitter and Facebook.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 28th, 2011 at 2:49 AM and is filed under Sports. Tags for this post: Football, Nick Foles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.