It's pretty silly on its face, the need to quantify just how ridiculous the phrase "12 catches for 241 yards and three touchdowns" actually is, but just for the fun of the exercise and to try (and fail) to put Jaden Barnes' performance at North Alabama into context, let's try.

For starters, 12 catches

• Would have been the fourth-highest total of the SEASON for a Gov in 2018.
• Are more than standout former Austin Peay receivers like DeAngelo Wilson, Lanis Frederick, Devin Stark, Baniko Harley, or DJ Montgomery ever hauled in over the course of one game during their illustrious careers.

If that's not enough, the 241 yards

• Put Barnes within sight of a Red Roberts single-game yardage record that's stood for more than 50 years now.
• Is equal to 723 feet, or the length of about seven blue whales backed up nose-to-tail.
• Is more than Austin Peay's combined receiving yards total in back-to-back games against Southeast Missouri and Murray State. Not in, like, 1981 but in 2021. 

And as the capper, three scores

• Would have led or tied for the most touchdown receptions in a season by a Gov five times in the last 20 seasons.
• Would have equaled or bettered the Austin Peay TEAM receiving touchdown tally for an entire season nine times since 1959.

This was… ethereal? Supernatural? Transcendent? Kinda gotta bust out the thesaurus for accurate descriptions because the performance Jaden Barnes turned in on Saturday demands it. You probably won't see anything like it again, at least not by a player in an Austin Peay uniform, not because he doesn't have it in him – he clearly does – but because it's just that rare.

The previous three 12-catch, 240-yard, three-score Division I games before Barnes decided to turn in his best Jimmy Smith impersonation on Saturday?

Stanford's Elic Ayonmanor against Colorado in 2023.

Fordham's Fotis Kokosioulis against Ohio in 2022.

Ohio State's Jaxon Smith-Njigba in the freaking Rose Bowl against freaking Utah on New Year's Day 2022.

In summary, this sort of "house calls and large bills-only" game comes around about once a year in Division I and, for the first time since Roberts' sainted '69 outing against Murray State, a Gov was the bringer of pain for the opponent and rain for the offense.

This was not an instance of avarice, of Barnes picking on a poor little North Alabama defensive back until the Lions were obliged to triple him or hit him with tire irons until he stopped, although both might have been better choices to make. North Alabama's got some dawgs back there in preseason All-UAC safety Edwin White Schulz and Ashaad Williams, who ranks fourth in the United with eight passes defended. On paper, the Lions' talent measured up. 

Didn't matter. Not really. 12 catches, 241 yards and three touchdowns. In his last three games, that puts him at 20 catches for 434 yards, an eye-popping 21.7 yards per reception that would rank third nationally over the entire season (Barnes' 18.8 yards per catch for the season is 17th, so he's been none too shabby in that regard anyway).

"He deserves all the credit," said head coach Jeff Faris. "What we ask him to do is not easy. He lines up everywhere for us, and the way he prepares and studies the playbook… when we put something in, it's like he's run it 10 times already. He had an unbelievable game and is having an unbelievable stretch."

I'm actually serious when I say this: some of North Alabama's defensive backs did an okay job in their coverage of Barnes. Some of his catches were really excellent, requiring the sort of skill and precision Governor fans have rightfully come to expect from him, especially his 49-yarder in the fourth quarter to put the game away. Quite often, North Alabama was able to efficiently limit Barnes' yards after catch (although, again, the man did haul in a dozen balls over the course of a four-quarter football game). But sometimes… look, you can blame whomever you want when a speedster takes a little seven-yard in and turns it into a gain of 43. When the scheme calls for sagging 10 yards off the receiver and then daring him to beat you in space one-on-one, and then the receiver does it, so then you press cover with no help over the top, and Barnes jets past his man for an easy score, and then he's so wide-open on his second touchdown that it looks like everyone just forgot he was on the field… look, it's hard to justify getting mad at the Mongols for doing all that pillaging if you're going to leave the gates unguarded, is all I'm saying.

How rare and special is a game like that? As recently as 1993, Barnes' performance against North Alabama would have led the Govs in receptions, yards, and touchdowns for the entire season. Yes, the Govs were a fully-committed option team at that time; no, that doesn't matter for this narrative because even the Army's and Navy's of the college football landscape use a little play-action from time to time to keep opposing defenses from putting 11 in the box.

Savor the memory of Barnes' Saturday outing; relish it, and if you happen to be unfortunate enough to be lining up against Barnes, fear it. Opposing defenses now have to account for the fact that Jaden Barnes has that kind of performance somewhere in his bag, and if your scheme isn't tight enough and your defensive backs are not locked in enough, he might just turn around and do something similar to your team, too.