NCAA Division I FBS receiving leaders

The NCAA Division I FBS receiving leaders are the career, single-season, and single-game leaders in receiving yards, receiving touchdowns, and receptions. The lists are dominated by more recent players for several reasons:

  • Since 1955, the length of the regular season has expanded from 10 games to 11 and later to 12 games, with some programs now playing additional postseason games, including conference championship games, bowl games, and the College Football Playoff.
  • The NCAA did not permit freshmen to compete in varsity football until 1972 (with the exception of World War II–era seasons), preventing earlier players from accumulating statistics over four full seasons.
  • Bowl games only began counting toward single-season and career statistics in 2002. As a result, many pre-2002 players are underrepresented; for example, Trevor Insley had 98 receiving yards in the 1996 Las Vegas Bowl, which would have brought his career total to 5,103 yards if counted.
  • Beginning with the Southeastern Conference in 1992, FBS conferences introduced championship games, which have always counted toward official single-season and career statistics.
  • The NCAA ruled that the 2020 season, which was heavily disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, would not count against a player’s athletic eligibility, effectively granting an additional year of eligibility to players active that season.
  • Since 2018, players have been allowed to participate in as many as four games in a redshirt season; previously, playing in even one game "burned" the redshirt. Since 2024, postseason games have not counted against the four-game limit. These changes to redshirt rules have given very recent players several extra games to accumulate statistics.
  • Only statistics accumulated while a player’s team competed in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) are included. For example, only one of Randy Moss’s two seasons at Marshall (1997) counts toward these lists because the program was previously in the FCS.
Legend
Active FBS Player

Statistics are accurate as of the end of the 2025 NCAA Division I FBS football season.

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