Mercer place-kicker earns new nickname from teammates

Mercer place-kicker Cole Fisher recently changed his Twitter handle to appease his teammates.

And the new handle perfectly describes the sophomore’s strong start to the season.

Fisher leads the Southern Conference with eight field goals in 10 tries, and he made a 42-yarder at the buzzer Saturday to force overtime at VMI. Mercer then won the game 33-30 in the extra period.

And Fisher’s teammates gave him a new nickname: “Ice Cold Fisher.”

“I don’t know. I’ve had a lot of nicknames to go with kicking, but that’s probably the coolest one. I like that one the best out of all of them,” Fisher said with a smile. “The guys kept telling me I had to change my Twitter handle because the old one was from a high school nickname, so I figured it was time to let that one go.”

Fisher and the Bears travel to third-ranked Chattanooga at 4 p.m. on Saturday in Southern Conference action. Fisher said he would be ready if called upon again in a clutch situation.

“That’s definitely a big moment for me,” Fisher said. “A coach of mine has said, in pressure situations, if you’re a kicker that’s wanting to go on the field … if the offense is going down the field and you know you’re going to have an attempt like that, you have to be able to want to go out there and give your team a chance. To go out there and convert it, yeah, it was a good feeling.”

Fisher has made all 10 of his extra-point tries this season, and he made three field goals against The Citadel and two each against Tennessee Tech and VMI. Against Tennessee Tech, he made a career-long 49-yarder.

“It’s a great feeling. I don’t know who said it, but I’ve heard that every drive should end with a kick, whether it’s a punt, a PAT or a field goal,” Fisher said. “For the team to know, ‘If we don’t get the third-and-medium or third-and-long down here in field goal range, we’ve got a guy who can go put something on the board, even if it’s not a touchdown.’ It’s a good situation.”

The best situation, Fisher said, is for everyone to leave him alone before his kicks.

“In a perfect world, I would not have anybody talk to me the whole time the offense has the ball, especially when I know and the team knows I’m going to have to go out there and make a kick sometime soon,” Fisher said. “I try to separate myself from everyone else so I can just be left alone to empty my mind and think what I think. (Assistant coach Grant) Cain has done a good job during pregame and situations like that of breaking up the tension with a couple short words or a simple joke. In a perfect world, I’d prefer to be left to my own devices.”

This story was originally published October 5, 2016 at 6:08 PM with the headline "Mercer place-kicker earns new nickname from teammates."