For the second-straight week, Eastern Washington University senior quarterback Gage Gubrud has been honored for a 300-yard passing performance as the Big Sky Conference selected him Monday (Sept. 10) as its Big Sky Conference Offensive Player of the Week. It was the seventh time in his career he’s been honored with that award by the Big Sky, and he also earned the same honor this week from College Sports Madness.
He had 402 yards of total offense – 322 passing and 80 rushing – in EWU’s nail-biting 31-26 victory over Northern Arizona on Sept. 8. He completed 18-of-33 passes and had four touchdowns and no interceptions, as he finished with his 13th game with at least 400 yards of total offense and his 18th with at least 300 passing. He helped Eastern finish with 570 yards of total offense.
Gubrud also went over the 10,000-yard mark in his career for total offense with a current total of 10,188. He is now just 754 from moving into third in EWU history and 12th all-time in the Big Sky. Gubrud also has 83 touchdown passes in his 29-game career to rank fourth in school history, just one from third.
One week earlier versus Central Washington, an 82.3 percent passing performance helped the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision All-American receive FCS Performer of the Week honors by College Football Performance Awards. He completed 19-of-23 passes in EWU’s 58-13 season-opening win over Central Washington on Sept. 1, finishing with 337 yards with no interceptions and five touchdown passes. It was part of a 677-yard onslaught by the Eagle offense – fifth-best in school history..
After two games, Gubrud already has 747 yards of total offense — 659 through the air and 88 on the ground. He’s completed 66.1 percent of his passes (37-of-56) and has an impressive 218.0 passing efficiency rating. He leads FCS with nine passing touchdowns and 54 total points accounted for, and is third in total offense (373.5), third in passing efficiency (218.0) and sixth in passing (329.5).
Gubrud has played in just 29 career games, but he’s still making his mark in a hurry on EWU’s career leaders list and soon will make his mark on the Big Sky Conference leaders list as well. He’s moved up to No. 4 in school history in career passing yards with 9,227, ranking only behind 10,000-yard passers Matt Nichols (12,616), Vernon Adams Jr. (10,438) and Erik Meyer (10,261). He is also fourth in total offense with 10,188 yards, ranking behind Nichols (13,308), Adams (11,670) and Meyer (10,942). Gubrud is 1,470 passing yards from making it onto the top 10 in Big Sky history, and is only 754 from the total offense mark of Meyer which ranks 13th in the 55-year history of the league.
After setting three FCS, seven Big Sky marks and 18 school records in the 2016 season, Gubrud now seeks to maintain a pair of career marks. Now 19-6 in 25 games as a starter, he remains the Eastern career leader in passing yards per game (318.2) and total offense per game (351.3), and is second in completion percentage (.651). He is also third in efficiency rating (158.3), fourth in touchdown passes (83), fourth in completions (691) and fifth in attempts (1,061).
Gubrud now has a school-record 10 400-yard passing performances in his career, three more than Adams with seven. He has had back-to-back-to-back 400-yard performances on three occasions, and Adams, Jordan West and Matt Nichols are the only other quarterbacks in EWU history to have accomplished that feat two games in a row. Gubrud’s 18 300-yard passing performances rank only behind Nichols (19) and Adams (20).
Gubrud owns the school record with 13 performances of at least 400 yards of total offense and six with at least 500. He owns eight of the top 10 single game total offense performances in school history (1-2-3-4-6-7-8-10), plus the Nos. 14, 20 and 29 performances. He owns nine of the top 19 passing performances (1-2-4-7-13-15-16-18-19), plus Nos. 23, 40 and 45.
