Kyle Trask had a magnificent start to the 2020 season. Through three games, he’s rolled up just shy of 1,000 yards and 14 touchdowns. The latter figure is more passing TDs than the entire UF team had in any of the 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2017 seasons. He’s tossed at least four in each game; four more would tie him with the 2014 and 2016 seasons at 18.
If Florida can finish out its season, Trask has a chance to rewrite some school records. Here are some notable ones within his grasp if he can sustain his high level of play. The Gators have yet to face some of the better defenses on the schedule, but with college defenses struggling across the board in 2020, Trask may keep rolling through the year.
Eligibility and the untouchables
Some of the Florida record book’s career marks like passing efficiency and lowest interception percentage require a minimum of 500 completions for a quarterback to be eligible. Trask has 325 so far. If UF can play the seven remaining scheduled games and a bowl, he would need to average just under 22 completions per game to hit 500.
He completed 30 on Ole Miss, 21 on South Carolina, and 23 on Texas A&M. The latter two games saw the UF offense running fewer than 60 plays in each contest. Trask can rack up 22 a game if he continues to complete above 70% of his throws, but the defense could help him out by getting off the field and letting the offense have more cracks at it.
Because Trask will finish 2020 with fewer than two full seasons as starter, one an abbreviated season at that, he doesn’t have a chance at a lot of the cumulative career records. Multi-year starters Danny Wuerffel, Shane Matthews, Chris Leak, Rex Grossman, and Tim Tebow compose the top of basically all of the records like career attempts, completions, yardage, and touchdowns.
Trask simply won’t play in enough games to touch those marks. If he manages to throw 40 touchdowns this season — which would break Wuerffel’s single-season school record of 39 in 1996 — he’ll still be eight behind fifth-place Matthews and his 74 passing TDs.
I assume Trask will go pro after this year, as some mock drafts are already putting him in their first rounds. He’d have a shot at some of these longevity-linked career records if he takes his NCAA eligibility mulligan and returns for 2021. For this piece, I will assume he’s playing on Sundays next fall.
Passing efficiency
Passing efficiency is falling out of favor with many in the analytics community now applying the NFL’s passer rating to college quarterbacks. PE is still a stat the NCAA tracks, though, and it’s one where Trask has a prime chance to take a top spot.
Wuerffel has the single-season record at 178.4 in 1995, and Tebow owns the career mark at 170.79. So far this year, Trask is at 195.99, which is comfortably ahead of Wuerffel. He has a lot of cushion to have a bad game or two and still make a run for the top spot.
If Trask keeps on exactly the same pace for 11 games as he has in the first three, he’ll finish his career with a 175.6 passing efficiency. I would not bet that he’ll do that with good defenses like Georgia, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee still left to go, not to mention it would imply he smashes the single-season passing touchdown record with 51 (NB: 51 would give him 77 for his career, tying him with Grossman for fourth). It’s not impossible, but it would take an astonishing one-year achievement.
Completion percentage
The career completion percentage record only requires 400 completions, not 500, so Trask might break that eligibility threshold on Halloween against Missouri. Tebow owns the record again with 66.4%, well ahead of second-place Wayne Peace’s 61.6%.
Trask’s career rate currently sits at 67.8%, so he easily could set this mark too. He’s completing 71.8% on the year, and little suggests that will fall too far.
Peace has the yearly record at 70.7% in 1982, so Trask can’t slack too much here and get the single-season crown. The record book requires 150 completions, so it’ll take a few more games before Trask is eligible for this one, though.
Lowest interception percentage
Interception percentage is what it seems, a passer’s number of picks divided by attempts. This mark requires 500 completions, and Tebow has it at 1.61%. John Brantley is second at 2.79%, so Timmy is way out ahead.
Trask’s career rate sits at 1.67%, aided considerably by his one interception in 103 attempts this year. He did have one erased by penalty in the last game against the Aggies, but the record book of course dutifully ignores those.
Using our naive projection of copy/pasting the first three games’ results through 11, Trask would end up at 1.42% for his career. He could break Tebow’s mark, but even if he can’t quite do it, he’ll be safely in second place.
300 yard passing games
The season record belongs to Grossman with ten. Trask has done it twice in three games, so technically he could tie the mark by doing it in every game from here on out. I doubt that’ll happen, since I don’t see him breaking 300 on Georgia because of its defensive quality. He might not against Vandy either due to its likelihood of being an empty-the-benches laugher. Obviously Trask could get an extra chance if the Gators go to Atlanta.
He did have four 300-yard games last year. If he tied Grossman with ten this year, he’d tie for third in career 300-yard games with Wuerffel behind Matthews’s 15 and Grossman’s 17. But again, I don’t expect Trask to get to ten.
200 yard passing games
Ah, but what if we lower the bar a bit? The big four of Matthews, Wuerffel, Grossman, and Tebow all share the single-season mark of 11.
If Florida plays all of its schedule and a bowl, I could definitely see Trask adding his name to that logjam at the top of the list. He was closer to 300 than 200 in the one game when he didn’t get to 300 yards (268 versus South Carolina), and the Gators are a pass-first team this year. If Trask is healthy for every game, I could see him running the table and getting at least 200 yards in every one of them. His only start last year when he didn’t get to 200 yards was the romp over Towson, and even then he got to 188. It’s not a bad bet to have him over 200 yards every game this year.
In sum
If Kyle Trask continues the rest of the way as he has started 2020, he’ll cement his place as legitimately one of the best quarterbacks in school history. Even if he doesn’t quite keep up his torrid early pace, he’ll still land among the stars.
Continue to feel angst about the defense all you want — I certainly will — but don’t miss out on Trask’s brilliance in the meantime.