All-Time Leaders: Interceptions Thrown in a Game

All-Time Leaders: Interceptions Thrown in a Game


September 18, 2023
Demetrius Brown (image via Pinterest)

This is not a list you want to be on, but you have to take the bad with the good. So here’s a look at the players who have thrown the most interceptions in a single game, and I was not aware of the school record until now:

  1. 7 – Demetrius Brown (1987 vs. Michigan State)
  2. 5 – Stan Noskin (1959 vs. Wisconsin)
  3. 4 – John Wangler (1979 vs. Purdue)
  4. 4 – John Navarre (2001 vs. Ohio State)
  5. 4 – Tate Forcier (2009 vs. Ohio State)
  6. 4 – Denard Robinson (2012 vs. Notre Dame)

How do you throw 7 interceptions in a single game and not get pulled before you reach that point?

Brown’s stat line during that game: 12/26 (46.2%), 158 yards, 1 touchdown, 7 interceptions. Michigan State won by a score of 17-11.

I planned to list the times players have thrown 3 interceptions in a game, but there are 44 of them!

Steve Smith and Rick Leach both threw 3 interceptions four times each. The most recent time a Michigan QB threw 3 picks in one game was J.J. McCarthy against Bowling Green in 2023.

3 comments

  1. Comments: 1356
    Joined: 8/13/2015
    Roanman
    Oct 17, 2020 at 8:47 PM

    Bo had Michael Taylor on the bench and I’m pretty sure he was healthy. Brown got hurt later that year and Taylor got some starts including the Alabama game that Jamie ran wild in … I think. Then he and Brown battled for the rest of their careers. Tayler got most of the starts, but Brown was mostly always there.

    I watched that god awful game with my dad. I would have pulled his ass for sure.

    Bo claimed that Taylor was the better runner, but he threw for 60+%.

    I never felt great about either of them. Although I felt better about Michael
    Taylor.

  2. Comments: 30
    Joined: 9/3/2015
    Oct 17, 2020 at 9:45 PM

    I’m 43, and that 1987 season is the first one I can reliably remember. Perhaps the strangest thing about that 7-INT game from Demetrius Brown is that he completely turned it around next season. After he lost the starting job to Michael Taylor and got it back after Taylor broke his collarbone, Brown didn’t throw a single interception in 84 attempts in 1988, and led Michigan over USC in the ’89 Rose Bowl.

  3. Comments: 522
    Joined: 8/12/2015
    DonAZ
    Oct 21, 2020 at 5:59 AM

    Denard Robinson threw *only* four interceptions against ND in 2012? I would have guessed the number was more like six. I listened to that game on Sirius Radio, and I recall turning it off after *yet another* interception was thrown. I’m sure the stats say “4,” but to my memory the number seemed higher.

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