As you've likely heard, we don't have any live-action contests to cover at LetsGoPeay.com right now. What we do have is free time; oodles and oodles of free time. Enough free time to swap oodles of emails with various people who would know to create a snapshot of the 10 best players in Austin Peay football history. We'll start with the fearsome defensive presence from the first Ohio Valley Conference title team.

Like the 2019 version that won the conference title, Austin Peay's 1977 Ohio Valley Conference championship team also had a defense-first mentality, and at its center was the force that was Bob Bible.

5-foot-9 and 205 pounds of ferocity, Bible must have enjoyed hitting people. How else to account for his 436 career tackles, including a program-record 267 solo stops? Bible never seemed to lose out in a one-on-one situation, stymieing opposing runners for 170 stops in 1977 alone, a mark which remains fourth all-time.

Three times Bible finished a season with more than 100 tackles and twice he was named All-OVC, but the 1977 season was his masterwork. Leading a defense that featured future Austin Peay Athletics Hall of Famers Mike Betts and Ron Sebree, Bible became the first player in program history to earn OVC Defensive Player of the Year and was the program's third defensive All-American. The Govs surrendered just 12 points per game that season, and only gave up more than three touchdowns to an opponent twice with Bible serving as a captain.

He wasn't just a hit machine, either. Bible had a nose for the ball, recovering 12 fumbles and intercepting four passes during his Austin Peay career despite playing sparingly as a freshman – remember, this was an era where first-year players often spent most of their first year on campus getting acclimated and putting on weight. For the Govs, the wait for Bob Bible was more than worth it, and it paid off in the program's title-winning campaign.