Nathan Hayes stats, 2026
North Dakota State (6–2, Mountain West). Quarterback. 2026 season, games through Oct 24, 2026.
Nathan Hayes is a quarterback for North Dakota State (6–2). Among quarterbacks this season he's 42nd in passing TDs (11), 52nd in rushing yards (265), 63rd in passing yards (1,484), in 7 games. This week: UTEP at North Dakota State.
Bio
Who is Nathan Hayes?
- Position
- Quarterback
- Class
- Senior
- Height
- 6-3
- Weight
- 228 pounds
- Number
- No. 2
- Hometown
- West Chicago, IL
- High school
- St. Charles East (St. Charles, IL)
- Recruiting
- 2-star, No. 2723 in the 2022 class
From the 2026 roster, the 247Sports recruiting composite and the transfer portal, all via CollegeFootballData.com.
The season
Nathan Hayes's passing stats
He's 42nd of 197 quarterbacks in passing TDs (11) and 63rd of 209 quarterbacks in passing yards (1,484).
| Stat | Season | National rank |
|---|---|---|
| Passing yards | 1,484 | 63rd of 209 |
| Passing TDs | 11 | 42nd of 197 |
| Interceptions thrown | 7 | — |
| Completion % | 62.8% | 91st of 172 |
| Yards per attempt | 7.6 | 78th of 172 |
The season
Nathan Hayes's passing efficiency
He's 69th of 173 quarterbacks in sack rate (4.4%) and 78th of 207 quarterbacks in EPA per play (0.26).
| Stat | Season | National rank |
|---|---|---|
| Passing success rate | 41.5% | 97th of 172 |
| EPA per play | 0.26 | 78th of 207 |
| Sack rate | 4.4% | 69th of 173 |
The season
Nathan Hayes's rushing stats
He's 12th of 128 quarterbacks in rushing success rate (62.9%) and 17th of 133 quarterbacks in yards per carry (7.6).
| Stat | Season | National rank |
|---|---|---|
| Rushing yards | 265 | 52nd of 207 |
| Carries | 35 | 71st of 209 |
| Yards per carry | 7.6 | 17th of 133 |
| Rushing success rate | 62.9% | 12th of 128 |
| Rushing TDs | 4 | 40th of 149 |
Ranks are among every FBS quarterback with the stat this season. Rates need a minimum sample (50 dropbacks for passing rates, 20 carries, 8 catches). From the play-by-play.
Charts
How does Nathan Hayes compare, in charts?
Career
Nathan Hayes's career stats
| Season | Team | Comp. | Att. | Comp. % | Pass yds | Pass TD | INT | Rush yds | Rush TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | North Dakota State | 12 | 19 | 63.2% | 214 | 3 | 0 | 90 | 1 |
| 2025 | North Dakota State | 25 | 44 | 56.8% | 381 | 4 | 1 | 88 | 1 |
| 2026 | North Dakota State | 123 | 196 | 62.8% | 1,484 | 11 | 7 | 265 | 4 |
| Career | 160 | 259 | 61.8% | 2,079 | 18 | 8 | 443 | 6 |
Past seasons (back to 2022) from CollegeFootballData.com; 2026 from the play-by-play, games through Oct 24, 2026.
Advanced
Nathan Hayes's advanced stats by season
| Season | Team | EPA/play | Pass EPA/play | Rush EPA/play | Pass success | Explosive passes | Rush success | Total EPA | Usage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | North Dakota State | +1.50 | +1.50 | — | — | — | — | 4.5 | 13% |
| 2025 | North Dakota State | +0.29 | +0.29 | +0.34 | — | — | — | 5.6 | 14% |
| 2026 | North Dakota State | +0.27 | +0.22 | +0.69 | 41.5% | 16.3% | 62.9% | 62.0 | 48% |
EPA per play is the expected points a player adds on each of his plays (0 is average; glossary). Success means the play stayed on schedule: half the yards to go on first down, 70% on second, all of them on third or fourth. Explosive means a run of 12+ yards or a completion of 16+, as a share of his throws, carries or catches. Usage is the share of his team's plays that went to him. EPA and usage leave out garbage time; success and explosive rates count every play. From CollegeFootballData.com and cfbfastR.
Game log
Nathan Hayes's game log, 2026
| Week | Opponent | Result | Passing yards | Passing TDs | Interceptions thrown | Rushing yards |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | vs. Fordham | W 38–0 | 370 | 3 | 1 | 35 |
| 2 | North Dakota State | 228 | 2 | 1 | 17 | |
| 3 | at Sacramento State | W 31–10 | 212 | 1 | 0 | 14 |
| 5 | vs. Wyoming | W 28–0 | 187 | 0 | 0 | 91 |
| 6 | at UNLV | L 7–13 | 130 | 1 | 3 | 46 |
| 7 | vs. Nevada | W 31–17 | 159 | 2 | 0 | 48 |
| 8 | at New Mexico | L 16–21 | 198 | 2 | 2 | 14 |
FAQ
Questions about Nathan Hayes
What position does Nathan Hayes play?
Nathan Hayes plays quarterback for North Dakota State, which is 6–2 this season.
Where is Nathan Hayes from, and what year is he?
Nathan Hayes is a senior quarterback for North Dakota State, listed at 6-3 and 228 pounds, from West Chicago, IL.
How tall is Nathan Hayes, and how much does he weigh?
Nathan Hayes is listed at 6-3 and 228 pounds on North Dakota State's 2026 roster.
What year is Nathan Hayes?
Nathan Hayes is a senior, from the 2022 recruiting class.
What are Nathan Hayes's career stats?
Over 3 seasons (2024–2026), Nathan Hayes has 2,079 passing yards, 18 touchdown passes and 8 interceptions, plus 443 rushing yards.
Who does Nathan Hayes play for?
North Dakota State (6–2, Mountain West), where he plays quarterback and wears No. 2.
Is Nathan Hayes eligible for the NFL Draft?
Yes. Players can enter the NFL Draft three years after high school, and Nathan Hayes was in the 2022 class, so he's eligible for the 2027 draft.
How did Nathan Hayes play in his last game?
Week 8 at New Mexico: 198 passing yards, 2 passing TDs, 2 interceptions thrown, 14 rushing yards. North Dakota State lost 16–21.
Where did Nathan Hayes go to high school?
St. Charles East (St. Charles, IL). He was a 2-star recruit, No. 2723 in the 2022 class.
What are Nathan Hayes's stats this season?
1,484 passing yards, 11 passing TDs, 7 interceptions thrown, 62.8% completion %, 7.6 yards per attempt in 7 games, through Oct 24, 2026.
How does Nathan Hayes rank nationally?
Among FBS quarterbacks: 42nd of 197 in passing TDs, 52nd of 207 in rushing yards, 63rd of 209 in passing yards.
When does Nathan Hayes play next?
North Dakota State hosts UTEP Sat, Oct 31, 3:30 PM ET on MW+. The numbers' pick: North Dakota State.
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College football, 2026 season
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Everything on this site starts with someone else's data, and we credit all of it. The projections, picks, rankings and tiers are our own math on top.
Where the data comes from
| Source | What we use | How often |
|---|---|---|
| CollegeFootballData.com, via the public cfbfastR files | Schedules, final scores, pregame Elo, play-by-play and box score stats, rosters | Usually posted Sunday or Monday morning after games |
| DraftKings lines (via The Odds API and CollegeFootballData.com) | The line and total on each game, and where each opened | Every morning, and before kickoffs Thursday to Saturday |
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| PRIME (primecfb.com) | Net, offense, defense and special teams ratings, strength of schedule, strength of record | Weekly |
| AP Top 25 (via NCAA.com) | Rankings and points, including others receiving votes | Sunday afternoons |
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| 247Sports | Team talent composite, star counts, 2026 transfer portal rankings | Preseason |
| The NIL Standard | Estimated NIL roster values | Preseason |
| us-atlas (U.S. Census Bureau boundaries) | State shapes for the map | Once |
How we turn it into projections
- Projected score. Each team's SP+ offense, plus how far the opponent's SP+ defense is from average, plus special teams. The home team gets half of a 2.5-point home edge added and the visitor half subtracted.
- Win chance. The projected margin turned into a probability, assuming games usually land within about 14 points of the projection. A 0-point margin is 50%; 14 points is about 84%.
- The three ratings. SP+ is built from every play this season. PRIME is a possession-efficiency rating. Elo uses only final scores and carries over from year to year, with 55 Elo points of home edge.
- The numbers' pick. The team at least two of the three ratings favor, with our confidence the average of their three win chances for that team. On the game cards, a pick is a lock when all three favor the same team and the average win chance is 80% or more, a coin flip when it's under 55%, and a lean otherwise. Injuries can drop the tier: each key player out counts by what he does for his team (a starting quarterback is 2 points, the feature back or top receiver half a point, doubtful counts half), the other side's injuries offset, and 1 point drops a tier, 2 points two. The game page shows it as an injury alert. Nobody overrides the numbers' pick.
- CFB Charts Top 25. SP+, PRIME and strength of record, each converted to a common scale and averaged.
- Playoff picture. The 2026-27 rules: automatic bids for the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC champions (the current conference leader stands in until the title games) and for the highest-ranked team from the American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, Pac-12 or Sun Belt. Notre Dame is in if it ranks in the top 12. The rest are at-large teams by the chosen rating, and all 12 are seeded straight by that rating, so the top four get the byes. Once the committee's rankings are out (first release Tuesday, Nov. 3), they become the default ranking.
- Missing data. When a team's play-by-play is clearly incomplete (fewer than 45 offensive plays a game), we hide its offense stats instead of showing bad numbers.
Rushing yards here exclude sacks, so they run higher than official totals. Ranks are out of the 138 FBS teams.
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Every stat and term on the site, explained like you're five. Or like you're a grown adult who never asked what EPA means and is now too embarrassed to.
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What the numbers on team pages, charts and head to head mean.
- SP+
- Bill Connelly's rating, built from play-by-play efficiency and explosiveness and adjusted for who each team played. The number is how many points better than an average FBS team a team is on a neutral field. SP+ 20 beats SP+ 10 by about 10.
- PRIME
- A rating built possession by possession: how well a team turns drives into points and keeps opponents from doing the same, adjusted for opponents. Zero is an average FBS team.
- Elo
- A results-only rating. Every team has a number, 1500 is average, and the winner takes points from the loser after every game. Beat a great team and you take a lot. Beat a bad one and you take a few. It carries part of last season over, so it's slow to catch a team that changed.
- Strength of record
- How impressive a record is, given who a team played: how many more games it won than an average team would have against the same schedule. It grades the resume. SP+ and PRIME grade how good the team is.
- Strength of schedule
- How hard a team's opponents have been so far.
- Opponent-adjusted
- Corrected for who a team played. Hanging 50 on an FCS team counts for less than hanging 30 on Georgia.
- EPA (expected points added)
- Every down, distance and spot on the field is worth some number of points on average. 1st and 10 at the opponent's 20 is worth a lot more than 3rd and 15 at your own 10. EPA is how much one play changed that number. A 50-yard bomb is a big plus. A pick-six is a very big minus.
- EPA per play
- A team's average EPA across all its plays. For an offense, above zero means it adds points and higher is better. For a defense, lower is better.
- Success rate
- The share of plays that keep an offense on schedule: half the yards needed on 1st down, 70% of them on 2nd, all of them on 3rd and 4th. A 4-yard run on 1st and 10 is a success. A 4-yard run on 3rd and 6 isn't.
- Explosive play rate
- The share of plays that go for a run of 12 or more yards or a completion of 16 or more.
- Yards per play
- Total yards divided by plays: runs, passes and sacks.
- Sack rate
- Sacks divided by dropbacks. For an offense, lower is better. For a pass rush, higher is better.
- Turnover margin
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- RECEIPTS
- Record Explained: Coaching, Experience, Incoming talent, Pure luck and Toughness of Schedule. Where a team's wins came from. Every team starts as a .500 team. The record above or below .500 gets split four ways that add up to the real record: schedule (what an average team would win against that schedule), roster (the wins its talent and returning starters are worth on paper), coach (wins from playing better or worse than that roster) and luck (actual wins against the wins its SP+ says it should have). On team pages and in two charts.
- Schedule, Roster, Coach and Luck RECEIPTS
- The four parts of RECEIPTS. Schedule: what an average team would win against that schedule, minus .500. Roster: the extra wins from a roster this good on paper (247Sports talent and returning production). Coach: wins from playing better or worse than that roster should. Luck: actual wins against the wins SP+ expects. Recruiting rankings undersell the service academies, so their coaches get extra credit.
- Luck watch
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- The wins a team should have, adding up its win chance in every game it played. Winning more than that usually means a lot of close wins, and close wins are mostly luck.
- Talent composite and blue-chip ratio
- 247Sports' score for a roster, built from every player's recruiting rating, with the best players counting most. The blue-chip ratio is the share of the roster that were 4- or 5-star recruits.
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How the picks, tiers and projections work. The full method is on Sources and methods.
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- Win chance
- The projected margin turned into a percentage, assuming games usually land within about 14 points of the projection. A tie projection is 50%. A 14-point favorite is about 84%.
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- Lock, Lean, Coin flip and Stay away
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- 12 teams, under the 2026-27 rules. Automatic bids go to the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC champions, and to the highest-ranked team from the American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, Pac-12 or Sun Belt. Until the title games, each conference's current leader stands in as its champion.
- Notre Dame is in if you rank it in your top 12. Everyone else is at-large.
- Seeds go straight by your order. Seeds 1 to 4 get first-round byes; 5 to 12 play first-round games at the higher seed.
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Projected scores come from SP+ offense, defense and special teams, plus 2.5 points for the home team. Cards also show DraftKings' line and total as facts: we pick winners, not bets. Open Details for the full read, or Head to head for every stat.
This week
Final scores against what we said before kickoff. The numbers' pick is the team at least two of SP+, PRIME and Elo favored. Ranked means in that week's AP poll. Open a game for the full preview as it stood going into the week.
Last week
All-time picks record
Straight-up picks: did the pick win? The numbers' pick is the team at least two of SP+, PRIME and Elo favor. The numbers' and SP+ picks start in Week 8; Elo picks go back to Week 1.
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Each column is that week's ranking. Arrows compare the latest poll to the week before. NR means not ranked.
Rankings come from cfbtrack.com. Week 1 is the preseason poll; each later week is the poll released before that week's games.
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SP+ vs. payroll is the average, across a conference's teams with an NIL valuation (positive means its teams play better than their payrolls predict). Blue-chip ratio is the share of all its rostered players who were 4- or 5-star recruits.
Ranks are national, out of 138 FBS teams. A top-10 team also counts toward the top 25 and top 40, and everyone outside the last cutoff counts as weak. Open a conference to see its teams.
Conference depth
Projected bracket
Seeds 1–4 get first-round byes. Seeds 5–8 host the first round.
The field and the bubble
The columns on the right show where each team would be seeded under the other ratings. A dash means out.
How the field is built
- 12 teams. Five get in automatically: the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC champions, plus the highest-ranked team from the American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, Pac-12 or Sun Belt (champion or not).
- Notre Dame is in if it ranks in the top 12.
- At-large. The remaining spots go to the highest-ranked teams left. If an automatic qualifier ranks outside the top 12, it takes the last at-large spot.
- Seeding follows the ranking, as it has since 2025. A conference champion isn't guaranteed a bye.
- Champions mid-season. "Current conference leader" uses the best conference record so far, with ties broken by the chosen rating. "Highest-rated team" picks the best-rated team in each conference instead.
- Composite averages SP+, PRIME and strength of record after putting each on a common scale.
- This is a projection from today's numbers. The real field is chosen by a committee on Dec. 6, after conference title games.
How we picked it
How we picked it
Three ratings look at a team in three different ways. The numbers' pick is the team at least two of them favor.
Where the game is won
Where the game is won
Each row puts one team's unit against the unit it faces, by national rank out of all FBS teams. An edge is a gap of 25 spots or more.
Injuries and availability
Statuses come from the conference availability reports and team news, as of the date shown. "Hasn't played" means a regular (the main passer, a quarter of the carries or 15% of the catches) with no pass, carry or catch in his team's last two games, from the play-by-play. That can be an injury, a benching or a suspension. Linemen and defenders don't show up in that check.
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Ratings: SP+ via CFB Update; PRIME via primecfb.com. Box and play stats computed from CollegeFootballData.com play data (via the public cfbfastR files), FBS games only for scoring. Rushing yards here exclude sacks, so they run higher than official totals. Ranks are out of 138 FBS teams.