This week, in 1989, Philadelphia Eagles head ball coach Doug Pederson took part in the FCS football game that set the record for most combined passing yards.

Pederson was slinging it for the Northeast Louisiana back then, the school which underwent a name change in 1999 and became Louisiana-Monroe. He threw for 619 yards in a 66-45 loss while Stephen F. Austin’s Todd Hammel went for 571, which resulted in 1,190 total passing yards on the afternoon.

Wednesday, Doug was asked about the anniversary at his midweek press conference:

“I’ll tell you it was a great day. Obviously, when you’re in the moment like that you’re just trying to execute your offense. I didn’t even know that I had thrown for that many yards in that particular game really until afterwards. At the time, a local reporter’s name was Jean Pawnee, came up to me in the locker room after the game. Of course, we lost the game which probably sticks in my memory bank more than anything, but he said I just set an NCAA record for most passing yards in the game, at the time. I think it’s been broken several times since, but that was just a great day and it was a lot of fun and got all of all the offensive guys involved in that day. I just wish we would have pulled out the victory. It would have made it that much sweeter.”

Doug’s right, the record has now been eclipsed a few times. He held the top spot until 1991, when it was broken by a guy from Weber State. Then, there were four more performances between 2008 and 2013 that bumped him down to 6th all-time:

At the division one level, the single-game passing record is 734 yards, set by Washington State’s Connor Halliday in 2014 and matched by Texas Tech’s Patrick Mahomes in 2016.


Doug’s name does appear a second and third time in the record books as a result of this game.

His 71 passing attempts on the day are now 12th most in FCS history, a number that placed him 3rd overall at the time. The FCS record is now 85 passing attempts in one game, set by Stephen F. Austin’s Jeremy Moses in 2008. Halliday also holds this FBS record, having thrown a ridiculous 89 passes in a 2013 loss to Marcus Mariota and the Oregon Ducks.

Pederson completed 46 of those 71 passes back in 1989, so he slots in at #13 in the record books in that category.

This has been your 1989 FCS football update for the day. Now let’s get it back to arguing about Carson Wentz and Nick Foles.