Marietta needed Harrison Bailey to play nearly perfect football on Friday night, and the four-star quarterback did just that.
Tennessee’s lone 2020 quarterback commit put up one of his best performances of his high school career in the semifinals of the Class 6A playoffs down in Georgia on Friday night, leading the Blue Devils to a 42-31 victory over Parkview High School to advance to the state title game next week.
Bailey played lights out in the game, completing 23 of his 26 pass attempts for 423 yards, five touchdowns, and one interception. Bailey even caught a touchdown pass, hauling in a six-yard score on a trick play.
Marietta trailed 14-7 early, but Bailey helped pull the Blue Devils even with a strong pass to Michigan State wide receiver commit Ricky White.
Bailey to Ricky White on a strike!!Marietta evens it up pic.twitter.com/6PS3r2n2SI
— VR2 (@_VR2_) December 7, 2019
Bailey would toss touchdown passes of 19, 21, 34, 52, and 69 yards against Parkview, and he showed off his skills as a receiver when he caught a touchdown pass from LSU commit Arik Gilbert right before halftime to put the Blue Devils up 28-17.
Harrison Bailey @HBailey_05 doing it all. Catches a touchdown from Arik Gilbert to extend Marietta’s lead to 28-17. Score comes after a controversial call that negated a Marietta TD after a fake snap was blown dead pic.twitter.com/nJkcejNGPr
— VR2 (@_VR2_) December 7, 2019
For Marietta, their appearance in the state title game marks the first time the Blue Devils have made it to the championship game since 1967, which they won. Bailey and the Blue Devils will take on unbeaten Lowndes High School from Valdosta, Georgia on December 14th at Georgia State Stadium in Atlanta. The game will kick-off at 8:00 PM Eastern.
As for Bailey, Friday’s monster performance is the second time this season he’s eclipsed 400 passing yards and five-plus touchdowns in a game. He threw for 426 yards and six scores in a 49-21 victory over North Paulding back on October 11th. Bailey has now thrown for at least 300 yards in five of Marietta’s 14 games and has thrown multiple touchdown passes in all but two games this season.
On the year, Bailey has completed 250 of his 360 passes (69.4%) for 4,000 yards, 44 touchdowns, and nine interceptions.
The 6-foot-4, 224-pound quarterback is rated as the No. 143 overall player and No. 4 pro-style quarterback in the 2020 class according to the 247Sports Composite rankings. He committed to Tennessee back on November 29th of last year, choosing the Vols over Michigan. Bailey intends to sign with the Vols during the early signing period — which begins December 18th — and enroll early in January.
