CLARKSVILLE  –  "The single-game Austin Peay touchdown passing record is six. After the last pass, Mike DiLiello now has five."

Director of Athletic Communications and football contact Casey Crigger announced the above to a stunned press box Saturday afternoon. With 7:57 to play.

In the second quarter.

DiLiello is a two-year starter for the Govs and gets his plaudits, deservedly so – with his first touchdown toss of the day, an 87-yard rope to Trey Goodman, DiLiello became the first signal-caller in Austin Peay history with multiple 2,000-yard passing seasons. But with so much skill and so many weapons at his disposal, DiLiello is occasionally overlooked simply by virtue of the audacious individual numbers that he helps guys like Goodman, Tre Shackelford, Jevon Jackson, and others accrue on a weekly basis.

Saturday against North Alabama was Mike's day. He equaled the school single-game mark with six scores through the air, on a tidily efficient 20-for-25 passing while piling up 353 yards. It all added up to a STATS FCS Offensive Player of the Week honor that felt preordained right around the time Casey was causing jaws to drop in the Austin Peay press box.

I mean… our guy had more touchdowns than incompletions. That's pretty wild and pretty rare.

Even for a quarterback, DiLiello has always had what appears to be a preternatural feel for the game. He pulls when he should pull, takes off when he should take off, and has earned the trust of the coaching staff to call his shot at the line of scrimmage when he sees something in the look he's getting.

"It all starts with No. 12," said head coach Scotty Walden postgame. "The things you guys see on gameday, that's like 3% of what he does. There are things you can't measure in the stat column, those are the things that make a great quarterback. His teammates don't want to let him down. I'm so proud and blessed to have a leader like Mike DiLiello."

And yet… was he an All-ASUN honoree a year ago? No.

Was he on the preseason All-UAC team this year? Again… no.

Parker McKinney at EKU got the nod both times and was well-deserving; this is not to throw shade at him for any reason. There was no second-team honoree. That's the way it goes sometimes.

But this year? New year. And a new resume, featuring all sorts of new highs for the gunslinger from Pembroke Pines, Florida.

"We talk about it in our office all the time, that the quarterback is the point guard," Walden said. "There are a lot of decisions on his plate and I think he's shown an incredible amount of poise. He's started understanding, checkdowns are okay. If a play isn't there, it's okay. He and I have gotten on such a great understanding of, 'Hey, if they get us, we're coming back and we know we'll get them more than they get us.' It's just a matter of execution, and we know we won't execute all the time but we know schematically we'll have answers."

DiLiello has had answers for just about everything so far.

Your first 20-touchdown tosser in the UAC? That'd be Mike DiLiello.

Your first 2,000-yard passer? DiLiello again.

The signal-caller for the team currently in the catbird seat for the UAC title? The nation's single-game leader in touchdown passes this season? You get where this is headed by now.

These were (largely) not dump-and-runs or touchdown tosses that ended drives after a methodical march down the field; DiLiello was throwing bombs, from his first pass landing safely in the arms of a streaking Goodman to a beautifully executed play fake that got the entire Lion defense to bite and ended with Brenen Hawkins untouched in the end zone 59 yards away from where he started to dropping a deep ball in Shackelford's hands as he scooted away for a 69-yarder. Even his shorter offerings – Khatib Lyles' 9-yarder and Jordan Goco from four yards away – came about because DiLiello put the ball where only they could catch it.

(The 11-yarder on a swing pass out of the backfield to Jevon Jackson featured the Governor tailback hurdling two Lions at the goal line to give DiLiello touchdown No. 6. This is considered sacrificing for your bro, and we support that around here.)

For all the numbers, what DiLiello showed in the late stages of the evening wound up being just as crucial, even if they registered but fleetingly in a "single-game passing touchdown record" kind of context. On Austin Peay's last full offensive drive, DiLiello was feeding Jackson to try and put the game away for the Govs and faced a crucial third-and-one. Off the snap, he called his own number, pulling the ball from Jackson's stomach and scampering left to pick up the first down and keep the clock moving.

A few plays later, the Govs faced a fourth-and-4 inside Lion territory. Too risky for a field goal and too short for a punt that stood a better than decent chance of rolling into the end zone for a touchback, DiLiello's cadence on the hard count drew a North Alabama lineman offside. Armed with a few more yards and a few more plays, these moments from DiLiello – heady, small, and unlikely to overwhelm just in the box score – helped put Maddux Trujillo in field goal position, and he hit a 45-yard field goal with just over a minute to go to put the game away for good.

It's all clicking for the Govs right now. And DiLiello thinks they can reach greater heights before this season is over.

"[Sometimes] we're putting up 40 points in a half, 28 points in a quarter," DiLiello said. "That's what I'm trying to preach to these guys, that we haven't even hit top gear yet. We're still in third gear. I'm excited to see when that happens."

The Govs are averaging 38.9 points per game, sixth in FCS behind your Montana State's and your South Dakota State's. They have the National Player of the Week, and that guy is telling us that not only have they not topped out, they're still exploring all they can be as an offense?

That's a bold and utterly terrifying thought for anyone lining up against the Govs over the final month of the season. You can – you even might! – beat them. But you're in for a long afternoon trying to stop them.