Washington State fans got a reminder Friday night that Ryan Harrington isn’t just the Cougars’ future quarterback signee. The Anacortes High School senior put together a performance that landed him in rarefied air.
Harrington, a class-of-2027 signee and a 6-foot-1, 200-pound dual-threat prospect, shredded Sehome in a 68-20 Anacortes win at Rice Field. He finished 26 of 38 for 704 passing yards and 10 touchdowns, a line that rewrote the Washington high school record book.
The yardage total wiped out Brett Rypien’s state mark of 613 yards, which had stood for 13 years after the former Shadle Park standout set it in a Greater Spokane League game against Mount Spokane in 2013. Rypien went on to star at Boise State and now plays in the NFL with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Harrington’s 10 touchdown passes matched the WIAA single-game record shared by Puyallup’s Nathanial Holcomb in 2016 and Kennedy Catholic’s Sam Huard in 2018, the son of former NFL quarterback Damon Huard. As the night wore on and the touchdowns kept stacking up, someone on the sideline let Harrington know about that part of the record first.
That was the number he wanted.
“I don’t like to play selfish,” Harrington said, “but this is the one time I wanted to be selfish.”
With 20 seconds left, he hit fellow senior Dre Quintino on a 49-yard catch-and-run touchdown to pull even with Holcomb and Huard.
The full scope of the game didn’t hit until later, when coach Justin Portz texted him a few hours after the final whistle. Harrington had also thrown for 704 yards, the most by a high school quarterback in the country since 2024.
That kind of production has been nearly unheard of. Since 2024, no one had topped the number Peyton Houston put up for Evangel Christian Academy in Louisiana, when he threw for 817 yards in a 77-76 loss to Captain Shreveport. The national single-game passing record still belongs to Will Grier, who threw for 837 yards for Davidson Day in North Carolina in 2012.
Portz said the game turned into a rare chance to chase history once Sehome started blitzing so often on defense.
“I was thinking last night, in the moment, that maybe there was a coach out there who really feels the right thing to do is take a knee,” Portz said. “I was thinking, ‘You do not get this opportunity very often to let one of your kids break a record, so let’s go for it!’
“We didn’t go into the game thinking it, but it was presented to us (by how Sehome was blitzing so often on defense) - so why not put this exclamation point on his career at Anacortes."
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Moore has kept the emphasis on getting the Cougars to play a full game, which has become the central measuring stick as they try to steady themselves. The matchup also brings a familiar backdrop, since Washington State and San Diego State have met in each of the last three seasons, with the Cougars winning the past two, but this years trip comes with WSU installed as a slight underdog and still carrying the weight of that conference skid. [Read more 🡒]
Washington State Suddenly Has Two More Problems It Cant Afford
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The bigger concern may be what happened up front. Moore said the Cougars are weighing changes along the offensive line after the unit gave up 16 pressures and two sacks against Boise State, a reminder that the problems on both sides of the ball are starting to stack up. With Washington State still winless against FBS competition, even small fixes now carry outsized importance. [Read more 🡒]
Boise States Strong Finish Changes The Feel Of The Pac-12 Race
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For a league still sorting itself out with recent results and a crowded schedule ahead, the win carried the kind of weight that can reshape the conversation for a few weeks. Washington State now has to regroup in the middle of a stretch that also includes games for Oregon State, Texas State, Fresno State, Colorado State, San Diego State and Utah State, with the Cougars left to wonder how quickly Boise State can turn a strong start into something bigger. [Read more 🡒]