Klingler Has Record Finish With 716 Yards

Houston’s David Klingler passed for a record 716 yards and seven touchdowns, including a 95-yard play, to lead the 11th-ranked Cougars to a 62-45 victory over Arizona State at Tokyo Dome Saturday.

Klingler surpassed the record of 690 yards set by Matt Vogler of Texas Christian in a 56-35 loss to Houston Nov. 3.

“I don’t like close games,” Klingler said after the 4-hour 20-minute game. “I’d like to just go out there and get it over with quickly, but they forced us to keep scoring.”

Klingler finished the season with 5,140 passing yards.

Klingler, who already held the NCAA record of 11 touchdown passes set in a game against Eastern Washington Nov. 17, also broke the NCAA mark for scoring passes in a season with 54. Jim McMahon of Brigham Young had 47 in 1980.

Klingler iced the victory over the Sun Devils (4-7) with a 95-yard scoring play to Manny Hazard with 1:32 left.

“That was a big, big-time play,” Houston Coach John Jenkins said. “That’s as good as you’ll see in the NFL.”

Houston (10-1) led, 55-45, at the time, after two fourth-quarter touchdowns by Arizona State and the only interception against Klingler, by Philippi Sparks on the Sun Devil 10 with 3:10 left.

Aside from his 95-yarder, Klingler’s other scoring passes covered 27, 26, 24, 51, 42 and seven yards. He hit John Brown three times and Verlond Brown, Chuck Weatherspoon and Kody Smith once each for scores.

Arizona State’s Leonard Russell rushed for 129 yards, including scoring runs of 42, 13 and 16 yards. He also caught a 16-yard scoring pass from Paul Justin.

Justin completed 33 of 63 passes for 474 yards.