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Fort White running back Dakota Fisher is the LCR’s Offensive Player of the Year. (PAUL BUCHANAN/Special to the Reporter)
FORT WHITE — Dakota Fisher wasn’t under any pressure to perform in the moment.
His Fort White team had just gone on a 21-0 run in the second half against Lafayette, opening up a 28-0 lead, thanks mostly to his efforts on the ground by the end of the third quarter. Still, with just over a minute left in the third, Fisher did what he normally does when given an opportunity and open space on the field.
He took what was owed to him.
When a Lafayette punt bounced between him and receiver Najeeb Smith at the Fort White 20, it continued to roll inside the 10. Most players would let the ball die there, especially with the score being what it was.
But Fisher knows what he can do.
He scooped the ball up, made a few cuts and ran 91 yards virtually untouched through the Hornets’ coverage team, putting the finishing touches on a 35-0 rout.
The play is emblematic of Fisher’s vision, patience and raw athleticism. It’s also part of the reason he earned the title of the Lake City Reporter’s Offensive Player of the Year.
While featured as one of the deadliest running backs in North Florida this season, Fisher said he takes pride in that ability to take a return back the other way. In fact, any chance he has to get in the end zone is one he’ll gladly take.
“I’d describe my game as being a scoring machine,” Fisher said. “Every time I step on the field, I’m probably going to be the fastest one on the field.”
Those features — along with a studious eye for the game — are what makes him a great player, according to FWHS head coach Demetric Jackson. But to hear Jackson tell it, that only scratches Fisher’s surface.
“He’s electrifying,” Jackson said. “Any time he touched the ball, there was a great possibility of him scoring.”
Fisher’s prolific senior campaign, in which he led the area with 1,924 all-purpose yards (1,235 rushing) to go along with 23 total touchdowns (19 rushing, 3 kickoff return, 1 punt return), nearly didn’t happen. He spent his first three years of high school ball at Chiefland, racking up 3,184 rushing yards over that timespan. His freshman season saw him run for an impressive 7.7 yards per carry on 76 attempts, and even that figure would turn out to be a career-low by the end of his high-school career.
After his junior season with Chiefland, Fisher attended a basketball tournament in Bell during the offseason. It was here that he found himself face-to-face with Jackson, who’d known and watched Fisher from a distance.
“I just asked him how recruiting was going, and he said it was kind of slow,” Jackson said. “I said, ‘I’ve been watching you from afar, just keep doing your thing, and good things are going to happen for you.”
Fisher remembers the offseason meeting as well.
“Coach Jack coached my brother in high school, so I wanted to talk to him,” Fisher said. “I already had a mind to transfer, and I was looking for a place to go for my 12th-grade year.”
Turns out, Fisher wasn’t far from beginning the enrollment process at Fort White, ready to spend his final season under Jackson’s tutelage.
It paid off.
Fisher’s area-best 23 total touchdowns are likely a school record, though that’s still unverified by school officials. What makes his feats more impressive is the fact that in every game except for two — the season-opening 19-13 win against Taylor County and the season-ending 17-10 loss to Union County in the regional semifinals — the Indians played with a running clock, usually on the positive side of it. That meant Fisher was mostly limited to first-half snaps, with the second-team offense taking over a few drives to close out games.
Jackson said limiting Fisher to early-game snaps wasn’t easy, though it did mostly preserve Fisher’s health after beginning the season with a nagging hamstring injury.
“We just told him, ‘You’re going to get your touches,’” Jackson said. “But early on, he wasn’t getting those 200-yard rushing games.”
It still didn’t stop Fisher, who rushed for three touchdowns in the season opener against Taylor before another pair of scores against Keystone Heights in Week 2.
As dominant as his season was, Fisher’s first 100-yard game didn’t come until Week 4 against Hamilton County. He only carried the ball a combined 16 times in blowout wins against Keystone and Jefferson County, amassing 177 yards and three scores in those two contests. But against the Trojans, Fisher put on a first-half show to remember, putting up 139 yards on just 13 touches while producing his second three-touchdown game.
However, Fisher’s coup de grace came near the end of October. In the middle of his team’s five-game win streak in the second half of the regular season, Fisher ripped off 188 yards on the ground on just 10 carries, all in the first half, to go with four touchdowns in a 45-0 blowout.
The beginning of that win streak also saw Fisher’s electrifying punt return against Lafayette. Considering he’d also scored on a kickoff return against Keystone, he may have been surprised when the Hornets kicked to him. What made it even more surprising was what one Lafayette player allegedly texted Fisher in the week leading up to the game.
“Someone on their team actually texted me and said, ‘Yeah, we’re not kicking you the ball this week,’” Fisher said.
Since the Keystone game and up to that Lafayette matchup, teams would generally kick away from Fisher.
The modicum of respect shown to him actually hurts Fisher’s feelings, according to him. His freshman season at Chiefland saw him put up a 30.8 yards per kickoff return average. That was good for 12th in the nation, according to Maxpreps.
“It kind of hurts me,” Fisher said of kickers’ aversion to him. “Any time they kick to me, I always think, ‘I’ve got to score.’
“It might be my only chance.”
That’s the mentality that Jackson said made Fisher an indispensable part of the team.
“The biggest thing about him is he’s a young man that’s passionate about football,” Jackson said. “He loves all aspects of it… He’s very smart, and he really understands the game.”
On top of his accomplishments on the field, Jackson said Fisher is also producing off it.
“(Fisher is a) young man that does a great job on the field, in the classroom, but also in the community,” Jackson said.
Fisher could potentially take those on- and off-field talents to a college program next season. However, with offers on the table from Miami (OH) and Charleston Southern among others to consider, Fisher said he’s taking his time and is still taking official visits to see where he feels he fits best. Besides that though, Fisher had a simple message for opposing teams once he does see the field at the next level.
“I’m coming,” Fisher said.