​Following his 12-2 freshman debut, BYU quarterback Bear Bachmeier is on pace to win an astonishing 48 games by the end of his senior season. Achieving that feat would be extraordinarily difficult, and if he pulls it off, Bachmeier would surpass Max Hall’s program record of 32 wins, a mark Hall accumulated over three seasons from 2007 to 2009. “Am I worried about Bear breaking my record? No, I’m not worried,” Hall joked on the Y’s Guys livestream this week. “If he does, great! I hope he does. I think that would be great for BYU.”
Hall went 11-2 as a redshirt sophomore in 2007 and followed with 10-3 and 11-2 campaigns, giving him more BYU wins than any quarterback in program history, surpassing the likes of Gary Sheide, Gifford Nielsen, Marc Wilson, Jim McMahon, Steve Young, Robbie Bosco, Ty Detmer, and Steve Sarkisian. “Has it been kind of nice having that record and being known as the winningest quarterback? Absolutely,” Hall said. “If Bear were to break that, I would be ecstatic for him. I think he has a long road ahead, and there are a lot of big games he needs to win.”
Hall’s signature win came against No. 3 Oklahoma to open his senior season in 2009. As a sophomore, Bachmeier now has a chance to make a name for himself against a playoff-contending Notre Dame in Provo and perhaps another shot at Big 12 defending champion Texas Tech—if both teams reach the Big 12 championship game. “The challenge is that defenses now have film on him,” Hall noted. “Defenses are getting incredibly complex and creative, and they’ll find any little weakness to exploit. He needs to do self-scouting, watch himself on film, and identify what he needs to improve and what he’s adding to his game this year that’s different from last year.”
Bachmeier surprised everyone in 2025, including BYU. The summer enrollee won the starting job during fall camp and went on to throw for more than 3,000 yards, rush for over 500 yards, and score 26 total touchdowns, earning Big 12 Offensive Freshman of the Year honors. Like Hall, Bachmeier’s days of flying under the radar ended after making so much noise with his BYU debut. Hall’s own 11-2 debut season in 2007 and that Mountain West Conference sophomore record of 3,848 passing yards turned heads across college football. “You come out 11-2 and set the bar. That becomes the expectation, and honestly, it’s like, ‘We should reach that again and go higher,’” Hall said. “My junior year, we had a really strong team—probably the most talented of the three years. We ended up 10-3. It just didn’t go the way we hoped.”
Bachmeier capped his sensational freshman year with a win over No. 22 Georgia Tech in the Pop-Tarts Bowl and finished the season ranked No. 11 in the final AP Top 25. As BYU looks to build on that early success, the program hopes Bachmeier’s continued development will sustain a high level of performance and keep the Cougars competitive at the national level.