All gas, no brakes, and certainly no punting.
Yep, with 2024 graduation commencements afoot, the Dog Days of Summer looming, and a high football season on the distant horizon, it’s back… the “Mauk” question.
Will the most passing yards in high school football history ever be broken?
Probably not?
Maybe?
You know a kid … ?
While high school football hasn’t shifted to a complete “pass first” style of offense — Wing-T and a cloud of turf rubber for the win — that’s not to say the game at this level hasn’t mirrored some of the playbook tendencies in college and of course the NFL.
Just look at the 2023 season, where slingers like DJ Lagway and Dylan Raiola lit up defenses with an air attack that had the opposing team’s secondary on their heels — and the social media world on standby, ready to hit send:
Florida 5-star QB commit DJ Lagway continued his monster senior season last night with 5 TDs, including this 52-yard bomb🎯
Lagway has 41 TOTAL TDs through seven games🤯
(🎥: @densilva02) https://t.co/Swm4OW4ksEpic.twitter.com/Nq2zBnpHfz
— On3 Recruits (@On3Recruits) October 6, 2023
Raiola’s second TD of the night goes to five star Florida State commit KJ Bolden. #GoDawgs pic.twitter.com/yH2gQhQRH3
— Jeremy Johnson (@JeremyO_Johnson) October 28, 2023
Predecessors of the air attack have dotted the high school gridiron the last few decades, a showcase of arm talent — perhaps mixed with the often commonplace makeup of the defense — that produced career-like stat lines in one season.
And when the final game of their senior seasons ended, the actual career numbers stood in otherworldly territory you’d typically find in video games set on Beginner Mode.
Will those types of numbers ever be repeated by some of the play-callers in the forthcoming graduating classes?
Or ever?
When scouring the archives and considering things like most passing yards of all time, it seems like the answer is no.
The hypothetical answer first lies within the math
One of the most prolific passers in 2023, Gage Baker, threw for over 6,000 yards at Paradise Honor (Surprise, Ariz.), adding to a career total of 11,769.
Those are incredible numbers, and move him ahead of two great quarterbacks in Josh Booty and Greg Paulus.
But that’s still outside the top 25.
Baker would have needed at least three years with the same output to come close to the all-time best, but even then, close is not the same as overtaking the lead.
The big chips?
Arch Manning, one of the most prominent national high school stars we’ve seen in recent years, ended his career at Isidore Newman (La.) with 8,539 yards passing. Uncle Peyton had 7,207. Uncle Eli had 7,389.
Fellow Longhorns slinger Quinn Ewers didn’t crack 7,000.
The two aforementioned 2023 standouts are in the same area. Lagway ended his career at Willis (Texas) with 8,392 yards passing. Raiola ended his remarkable journey from Arizona to the Georgia high school football fields with 8,442 yards.
(Without question, both Lagway and Raiola caused torment with their legs, too, so the passing totals are taken with dash of data salt.)
But, none of the those respectable hauls cracked the top 100 of all time, where names like Brock Purdy (8,932 yards) loom.
Which QBs have come close?
Some of the most recent names to make a significant push up the list were Richard Stallworth, who finished his Yuma Catholic (Ariz.) career in 2022 with 12,590 yards; Sam Huard, the Washington standout who set a state record with 13,226 yards; and Aaron Philo, who made the most significant mark during his time at Prince Avenue Christian (Shreveport, La.) — which ended in 2023 — throwing for 13,922 yards.
That placed him ahead of notable NFL names and Heisman winners Trevor Lawrence and Bryce Young.
Still, all of them are well outside even the top five…
13. Tucker Israel, Lake Nona (Orlando, Fla.)
Career passing yards: 14,082 (2011-14)
12. Travis Quintanilla, Refugio (Texas)
Career passing yards: 14,228 (2011-13)
11. Hunter Lile, Booker (Texas)
Career passing yards: 14,408 (2011-14)
10. J.R. House, Nitro (Wv.)
Career passing yards: 14,457 (1995-98)
9. Will Grier, Davidson Day (N.C.)
Career passing yards: 14,565 (2011-13)
8. Myles Brennan, St. Stanislaus (Bay St. Louis, Miss.)
Career passing yards: 15,138 (2013-16)
7. Layne Hatcher, Pulaski Academy (Little Rock, Ark.)
Career passing yards: 15,483 (2014-17)
6. Chris Leak, Independence (Charlotte, N.C.)
Career passing yards: 15,593 (1999-02)
5. Grant Gunnell, St. Pius X (Houston, Texas)
Career passing yards: 16,108 (2015-18)
4. Alex Huston, Glendale High School (Springfield, Mo.)
Career passing yards: 16,566 (2015-18)
3. Jake Browning, Folsom (Calif.)
Career passing yards: 16,775 (2012-15)
2. Ben Mauk, Kenton (Ohio)
Career passing yards: 17,364 (1999-02)
1. Maty Mauk, Kenton (Ohio)
Career passing yards: 18,932 (2008-11)
And with that, we’re back at where we started.
Will any high school quarterback ever top Maty Mauk’s total?
Every year, we look at those five-digits like a blinking neon sign and throw hypothetical head-tilts at it like we’re gauging an entree on “Man vs. Food.”
And every year, it seems like surpassing 18,932 yards is an uphill battle that will go untouched forever.
The hypothetical answer also lies within a coach’s decision-making
Aside from probably needing to be a four-year starter, with an above-average freshman campaign, or a three-year starter with a huge sophomore season, there’s also the physicality required for such gaudy numbers.
Ben Mauk threw 1,905 passes during his career; Maty threw 2,110.
The next-closest total to either is at 1,745.
That’s a lot of throws.
Mike Mauk, who coached both his sons and the No. 4 all-time passing leader, Alex Huston, didn’t rely on the pass-happy philosophy because he wanted his quarterbacks to be record-breaking.
Viewed by many as a pioneering icon in high school football, Mauk instead constructed the 5-wide/no running/no punting (seriously, no punting) concept, at least in his mind, out of necessity.
“If you look at the Kenton (Ohio) program when we came here back in 1983, we had to find a way to be competitive in our league and we had not had great success in past years. We had nine winning seasons in the history of the school in the Western Buckeye League. We sure couldn’t line up and run the Wing-T or the conventional offenses a lot of teams were running. We tried for three-four years and weren’t successful. Finally, we had to turn things around and we began to throw the football.”
And, oddly enough, a quote from Ben Mauk to MaxPreps in 2011 about his record being topped by little brother sheds light on one factor that compounds that issue.
“Other people know more about them (records) than I do. State champs — I’ll remember that a lot longer than records. When you play a team sport like football, it’s not about individuals. I sat out a lot. In a lot of fourth quarters, I had my shoulder pads off and watched from the sidelines. In a lot of games I had 500 yards at halftime. Maybe I could have thrown for 1,000 yards and set a national record.”
Sportsmanship, though a concept historically brushed in gray areas, is under a far greater microscope in the Social Media Age.
But could it be that type of old-school lesson that actually hits the brakes on any QB coming close to breaking the record?
Or do you really know a kid …?
