For a second consecutive year the Utes missed out on playing against highly-touted UCLA quarterback Josh Rosen. However, next weekend they will have to deal with the most accomplished quarterback in the conference in Luke Falk.
A walk-on turned record-setting passer, Falk has made Washington State his home and the Pac-12 Conference his stage on the way to becoming one of the most prolific quarterbacks in college football.
This weekend, Falk will play an hour and a half down the road from his hometown of Logan, Utah, when he and the Cougars (8-2, 5-2) visit Rice-Eccles Stadium and take on Utah (5-4, 2-4) Saturday afternoon. The game will be his last as a collegiate player in his home state.
As a senior at Logan High School, Falk threw for 3,618 yards and 36 touchdowns and set Utah single-season records for pass attempts (562) and completions (330) on his way to earning first-team All-State and All-Region honors.
Still, Falk went to Washington State as a walk-on and sat the 2013 season as a redshirt.
“I think the biggest thing is they gave me an equal opportunity, so that was appealing to me,” Falk said during a Pac-12 teleconference in October. “I believed coach [Mike] Leach when he said he’d give me a fair shot to compete with the guys that were on scholarship, and I loved the offense.”
The 6-foot-4, 223-pound Falk described the way things worked out for him at Washington State as the “the stars kind of aligned.”
This past weekend, the two-time All-Pac-12 selection became the conference’s all-time leader in passing yards by reaching 13,642 in the first half Saturday — surpassing the mark of 13,600 yards set by Oregon State’s Sean Mannion. Falk came into the day needing 132 yards to break the record, and he completed 34-of-48 passes for 337 yards and three touchdowns.
Falk finished the game with 13,806 passing yards (ninth-most in FBS history), and he now sits one touchdown pass from tying and two away from breaking former USC quarterback Matt Barkley’s conference record of 116 touchdown passes.
FOR THE RECORD<br>
Luke Falk’s career records<br>Pac-12 records<br>Passing yards: 13,806*<br>Total offense: 13,453*<br>Pass attempts: 1,931*<br>Pass completions: 1,327*<br>Completion percentage: 68.7*<br>WSU career records<br>Wins: 26<br>300-yard games: 28<br>* Also WSU record
Following Saturday’s game, Falk referred to the milestone as a team achievement, praising numerous teammates and coaches who’d helped compile those yards.
He’s led the Cougars during one of the program’s most successful periods in recent history. His 26 wins are a school record. If they defeat the Utes this weekend, Wazzu would potentially set up a showdown against Washington on Nov. 25 for a spot in the Pac-12 championship game.
“We wanted to put Washington State on the map,” Falk said last month of the program’s success. “We wanted to win a Pac-12 championship. Those are still our goals.”
Falk has guided Washington State to 19th in the latest AP poll and to No. 20 in the coaches poll, along with a program-record 7-0 record at home including a pair of wins over Top 25 foes in Stanford and USC.
The Cougars’ No. 8 ranking prior to its loss to California in October was the highest the program has been ranked since it reached No. 8 in 2003.
“He’s always been a focused guy,” Leach said of Falk prior to the start of the season. “Always been a guy that’s constantly worked to improve. Always been a guy that understood as he improves that it translates to others. He’s not a guy that has a bunch of highs and lows. Just kind of steady, focused, intense work ethic without any panic to it.”
Washington State coach Mike Leach, right, speaks with quarterback Luke Falk during the first half of an NCAA college football game against Boise State in Pullman, Wash., Saturday, Sept. 9, 2017. (AP Photo/Young Kwak)
Falk’s even-keeled nature showed in crunch time in Saturday’s victory over Stanford. His biggest show of emotion probably came in the form of an emphatic fist pump after taking a knee on the final play of the game, the exclamation point on the Cougars’ bounce-back game after losing by 21 points the previous week at Arizona.
In the fourth quarter against Stanford, Falk led the Washington State on a 94-yard drive and capped it with an 11-yard touchdown pass, the eventual game-deciding score, with less than seven minutes left.
“I got to say congratulations to Luke Falk,” Stanford coach David Shaw said in his press conference following Saturday’s loss to the Cougars. “He’s just a heck of a competitor. We got after him. We hit him a bunch of times. We got after him, and the guy just keeps coming and keeps coming.
“He made some big-time throws. That third-and-long from your own end zone – not a lot of guys can step in and make that throw, and he did. It was a heck of a throw. That throw won them the game. It got momentum back on their side. They drove the length of the field and took that lead.”
It’ll be up to the Utes to try to ruin Falk’s homecoming.
