By Thomas Corhern, TTU Sports Information
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – This time last year, Bailey Fisher was a true freshman. Sure, he had the opportunity as an early enrollee to go through spring practice with the Tennessee Tech football team and got a bit of a jump start, but it was a transition nonetheless.
Now, with a season as the Golden Eagles' starting quarterback under his belt, Fisher is now focused on year two.
"I'm feeling pretty good about it," Fisher said. "We put in a lot of work during the offseason. We've gotten better up front. I really feel like we've addressed our needs at running back and at receiver. We've added a lot of depth. The tight ends have been putting in a lot of work. With all the effort around the field, I feel pretty confident about this season.
"We all know that it isn't going to happen overnight. It's a process, but we're working day-in, day-out to get better, and we're looking forward to the challenge."
Still, that transition isn't an easy one to make. Just months before, Fisher was the starter at Rabun County (Ga.) High, throwing for 3,341 yards and 43 touchdowns in his final campaign, also rushing for 1,283 yards and 221 carries. Before Dewayne Alexander came back to Tennessee Tech as its current head coach, Fisher was on his radar at East Tennessee State, as well as Golden Eagle offensive coordinator Tre Lamb's when he was at Mercer.
When the two coaches converged in Cookeville, locking down Fisher was among the first tasks.
The investment paid off – Fisher was the Ohio Valley Conference's Freshman of the Year, the third for the Golden Eagle program, alongside Lee Sweeney (2006) and Tim Benford (2008). He was also a finalist for the STATS Football Championship Subdivision Jerry Rice Award, the freshman of the year in the lower tier of Division I football.
In 10 games, Fisher threw for 1,681 yards and 11 touchdowns – the best performance by a true freshman quarterback in Tech history and the 14th most passing yards in a single season. He put together the fifth-best passing game in school history with a 383-yard effort against Eastern Illinois and the third-longest pass completion with an 85-yard strike to Darrius Stafford against Southeast Missouri.
After just one campaign, Fisher has three 200-plus passing yard games, standing 10 shy of tying Sweeney and Lamb for the program record.
It certainly wasn't easy as Fisher had to make a lot of adjustments quickly.
"Everything was just so quick starting out," Fisher said. "Not just on defense, but also on my side of the ball. The receivers were so fast. Figuring out the timing, it was just so different."
There were some early season struggles as he became comfortable with his new teammates, but by the time the Eastern Illinois game came and went, everything clicked.
"After that game, I really started to settle in," Fisher said. "Everything just started to go a lot more smoothly. We still had some times where I wasn't looking as good, but I feel like this season will show a lot of progress."
So, with that stellar rookie campaign in the books, how different does it feel coming into 2019?
"The game's slowed down for me a little bit," Fisher said. "Coming out of high school and starting as a true freshman, the game was just so fast. Getting that experience with a full season has helped as my reads will be a little more slower and focused, as well as other things like that."
Learning under Lamb, who is also one of the top quarterbacks in program history as well as the signal-caller that led the Golden Eagles to its last OVC championship in 2011, has been a fantastic experience for the rising sophomore.
"That's been great," Fisher said. "Everyone knows Coach Lamb's legacy here at Tennessee Tech. He's a great one to learn from. He's progressed me as a quarterback so much. I could never thank him enough for what he's done for me."
While Fisher already has some hardware in his career as the reigning OVC Freshman of the Year, he humbly looks past that, focused on building the Golden Eagle program back up.
"That was an honor to win that, of course," Fisher said, "but I have to move past that and stay humble. I can't get big-headed on that or anything. I trust my coaches and their instruction, I trust my teammates and I just want to put up better numbers this year.
"I'd love to earn all-conference or throw for 3,000 yards, but I've always been a team guy. If I threw for 50 yards and we got the win, that's all that matters to me."
The ninth-place projection in the preseason polls certainly sticks in the Golden Eagles' craw, and Fisher definitely wasn't taking it lightly.
"It's just extra motivation for us," he said. "We know we can be better than that. We have to control what we can control, but it will definitely drive us a bit."
Photo by Thomas Corhern, TTU Sports Information
