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. On to No. 3 we go, to a man that was synonymous with Governor football in his day.

Jay Bailey contained multitudes.

He wanted to follow his brother, legendary basketball player Trenton Hassell, on the hardwood and even played a season at Volunteer State Community College before returning to Clarksville and deciding to give the gridiron a shot.

In three years, he rushed for nearly 3,000 yards and the best single-season mark in program history. Not bad for an aspiring power forward.

Here's what won't always be remembered: in addition to not even playing his first season of college football, Bailey missed five games across his sophomore and junior seasons. His sophomore campaign in particular likely would've yielded a 1,000-yard campaign had he not lost three games to injury; he posted 736 in the eight games he did play, including a program-record 99 on one carry against Valparaiso—what was at the time just the eighth 99-yard rush in then-Division I-AA, now FCS history. 

Healthy, hearty and hale, Bailey's senior season remains the gold standard for Austin Peay ball-carriers. He toted the ball 319 times—a program record by more than 60 carries—for 1,687 yards and 18 touchdowns, all program records, earning not only all-Pioneer Football League honors but consensus All-American accolades as the leading rusher in Division I-AA, now FCS. Bailey averaged an incredible 140 yards per game, a mark that has never been approached since that season.

In that final season, Bailey carried the Govs to their first winning season in nearly 20 years, averaging more than 200 yards on the ground across five late-season weeks, including a contest against Kentucky Wesleyan that saw him carry the ball a program-record 47 times. His three-game stretch in October that saw him rush for 200-plus yards in all three outings has never been equaled in Austin Peay history.

Bailey put the student part of student-athlete first as well; that same record-setting season that saw him earn All-American honors on the field, he was named an Academic All-American for his work in the classroom.