Ranking the top 5 Duke Blue Devils quarterbacks of all time

No position is more important in football than the QB spot. So let's look at the best QBs that the Duke football program has produced.
Duke v Clemson
Duke v Clemson / Lance King/GettyImages
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
3 of 5
Next

player. 434. Duke. 1989-91. . Dave Brown. . 3. . Dave Brown

New Jersey's Dave Brown is No. 3 on our list. In 1989, in early November, he arrived on the scene in a big way throwing for 444 yards against Wake Forest in his first career start. Later that month, Brown set a school single-game record with 479 passing yards against North Carolina. That year, the Blue Devils went 8-4 overall in the final season of Steve Spurrier's tenure as head coach.

Without Suprrier, Duke and Brown suffered. In 1990, the program went just 4-7 and a year later, it went only 4-6-1.

In those two seasons, Brown was still a quality player, though. He passed for 1,444 yards in 1990 and in 1991 he managed to throw for 2,794 yards and 20 TDs.

According to the Duke football media guide, Brown ranks in the top ten in the following categories for Duke quarterbacks: pass attempts in a season (#4, 437), pass attempts in a career (#5, 845), pass attempts in a game (#8, 54), pass completions in a game (#5, 33), pass completions in a season (#5, 230), pass completions in a career (#5, 463), passing yards in a game (#1, 479), passing yards in a season (#5, 2,794), passing yards in a career (#5, 5,717), touchdown passes in a game (#2, 4), touchdown passes in a season (#3, 20), touchdown passes in a career (#4, 42), 300-yard passing games in a season (#2, 4), 400-yard passing games in a career (#3, 8), 400-yard passing games in a season (#1, 2), and 400-yard passing games in a career (#2, 2).

Additionally, Brown ranks in the top ten in the following categories for Duke football offensive players: total offensive yards in a season (#5, 2,851), total offensive yards in a career(#5, 5,770), total offensive yards in a game (#2, 470), and two-point attempts in a game.

Selected by the New York Giants in the 1992 Supplemental Draft, Brown spent parts of ten seasons in the NFL. He would appear in 73 games making 60 starts and passing for 10,248 yards and 58 TDs while playing for the Giants and Arizona Cardinals.