Shepherd stars Bagent, Fisher ready for spotlight at Senior Bowl
The next step on the path to the NFL comes Saturday for Shepherd University seniors Tyson Bagent and Joey Fisher.
Bagent, a quarterback, and Fisher, an offensive lineman, will play in the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala., which starts at 2:30 p.m. and will be televised by NFL Network. They will be the first pair of Division II teammates to play in the same Senior Bowl.
According to the Senior Bowl website, 106 players who participated in the game over the last two years have been drafted. Over the past four years, 87.2% of Senior Bowl players made an NFL 53-man roster at some point during their rookie season.
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Bagent, who has quarterbacked the Rams to the Division II national semifinals in each of the past two seasons, was the 2021 Harlon Hill Award winner as the nation's best Division II player in his junior season, and placed third in the voting last year after he completed 400 of 572 passes for 4,580 yards and 41 touchdowns and rushed for 71 yards and five scores.
A Martinsburg graduate, where he threw for 7,800 yards and 112 touchdowns in leading the Bulldogs to a pair of West Virginia Class AAA state titles, Bagent went on to set numerous Division II career passing marks at Shepherd, including most passing yards (17,034), most pass completions (1,400), and most touchdown passes. His 159 career touchdown passes set an NCAA all-division mark.
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Fisher, a Clear Spring graduate, was an all-state small school first-team honoree as a defensive lineman in 2015. In 2022, he finished fourth in the Gene Upshaw Award balloting for Division II lineman of the year after leading an offensive line that helped Shepherd rank second nationally in total offense (489.3 yards), second in first downs (354), and seventh in passing offense (312.5 yards).
Fisher earned his Senior Bowl invitation following an impressive week of practice for the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., in which he and Shepherd running back Ronnie Brown played Saturday night.
Fisher got mentioned for his play on Pat McAfee's YouTube show, with former NFL center A.Q. Shipley saying he "was beating people up."
The NFL Draft will be held April 27-29.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Shepherd stars Bagent, Fisher ready for spotlight at Senior Bowl
