By Thomas Corhern, TTU Sports Information
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – The accolades continue to pour in for Tennessee Tech sophomore quarterback Bailey Fisher as he was named Monday afternoon as the STATS FCS National Offensive Player of the Week.
That is the first national offensive player of the week nod for the Golden Eagles since quarterback Darian Stone won the award after his third career start in 2012 in a 45-44 win over UT Martin. Defensive lineman Jordan Johnson earned national specialist honors in the 2013 campaign, then safety Marty Jones won national defensive accolades with his four-interception, 12-tackle game against Eastern Kentucky in 2014.
Fisher earned the Ohio Valley Conference's Offensive Player of the Week Award for the second time in his career on Sunday and College Sports Madness' OVC Offensive Player of the Week on Monday morning.
By now, Fisher's heroics during Saturday's thrilling 59-58 double-overtime victory over Samford to open the 2019 campaign have become new entries in the Tennessee Tech football lexicon, but certainly stand repeating.
The sophomore product out of Rabun County High in Georgia put the game on his shoulders and helped engineer one of the greatest comebacks in program history. Tech trailed by as many as 23 points, then over the course of the final minute of the third quarter, the entire fourth quarter, then the overtime period, led the Golden Eagles to the win.
In all, Fisher rushed for three touchdowns, threw two scoring strikes to Justin Oden and Tavin Kilpatrick, rushed in for a two-point conversion, then threw two-point passes to Oden and the game-winner to David Gist.
Fisher ended the contest with 463 yards of total offense, which stands third all-time behind Tre Lamb (474) against Southeast Missouri in 2012 and Stone (467) against Tennessee State in the same season. He also threw for 415 yards on 31-of-44 passing with no interceptions, putting himself in third for most passing yards in a game behind Lamb in the 2012 SEMO game (481) and Lee Sweeney (437) against the Redhawks six seasons earlier.
The sophomore was the OVC's Freshman of the Year last season and was a finalist for the STATS FCS Jerry Rice Award, recognizing the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision's freshman of the year.
Fisher, in just 11 games in his career, has 2,096 passing yards and 2,490 yards of total offense. He stands 655 yards behind Stone for 10th place in career passing and 706 yards behind Andre Caballero for 10th place in career total offense.
The Golden Eagles return to action on Saturday as they travel to Football Bowl Subdivision foe Miami (Ohio) for a 1:30 p.m. kickoff.
Photo by Thomas Corhern, TTU Sports Information