Asad Abdul-Khaliq
Asad Tajmmal Abdul-Khaliq is an American former professional football quarterback who played for the Chicago Rush and New York Dragons of the Arena Football League and Fort Wayne Fusion of af2. He played college football for the Minnesota Golden Gophers.
College career
Abdul-Khaliq was a four-year letter winner with Minnesota and was a two-year captain.Abdul-Khaliq started as a freshman in 2000, although he eventually split quarterback duties during his freshman and sophomore years with junior-college transfer Travis Cole, with Cole seeing the majority of playing time.
In 2002, after Cole graduated, Abdul-Khaliq became the full-time starter as a junior in 2002 and helped lead the Gophers to an 8–5 record, topped off by a win over Arkansas in the Music City Bowl.
During Abdul-Khaliq's senior season in 2003, the Gophers got off to a 6–0 start and were nationally ranked before suffering a devastating comeback defeat at the hands of the Michigan Wolverines in a nationally televised game at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. The Gophers finished off the year 10–3, including a 31–30 victory over Oregon in the Sun Bowl. For the season Abdul-Khaliq passed for 2,401 yards, throwing for 17 touchdowns and scoring four more on the ground.
Over his entire Gophers career, Abdul-Khaliq completed 481-of-847 career passes for 6,660 yards and 55 touchdowns in 46 games. He added 1,158 yards and 16 touchdowns rushing. Asad set Golden Gopher career records for touchdown passes, passing yards, total offense, completions and career touchdown-to-interception ratio. As of 2008, he currently holds all those records except for passing yards and completions which were broken by his successor Bryan Cupito, who also tied Abdul-Khaliq's touchdown mark of 55. His 19 touchdown passes in 2002 were one shy of Mike Hohensee’s school record for touchdown passes in a season, and he tied Hohensee's record of 10 straight games with at least one touchdown pass. He was the first quarterback in Gopher history to pass for at least 12 touchdowns in three seasons.