*** 2018  Honors Candidate ***
*** 2018 Academic Honors Candidate ***

Career: McPherson has career totals of 649 yards rushing, 448 receiving and 1,259 all-purpose yards in 30 games played (one as a starter). He’s even a perfect 3-of-3 passing for 77 yards and touchdowns on all three passes.

2018: Listed as a backup at running back on the preseason depth chart.

2017: Earned honorable mention All-Big Sky honors (as selected by the league’s head coaches). Was named to the Big Sky Conference All-Academic team. Started once at running back and played in a total of 10 games. He finished the season with 477 rushing yards and 252 receiving on 19 catches. He was injured and missed EWU’s last game of the season versus Portland State (11/18/17), but that came after he rushed for a career-high 118 yards on eight carries against North Dakota (11/11/17) to earn team offensive player of the week honors. He suffered his injury on a career-long 55-yard rush that set-up a touchdown to give EWU a 21-7 lead in what would finish as a 21-14 victory. He also had three catches for 37 yards in just one half of action. He was also the team’s co-offensive player of the week one week earlier versus Weber State (11/4/17) when he had 69 rushing yards on 13 carries and caught a pair of passes for 11 more. McPherson made the first start of his career at UC Davis (10/7/17), and in his first series as a starter, he gathered in a 40-yard touchdown pass. Against Sacramento State (9/30/17), McPherson completed a 43-yard touchdown pass to quarterback Gage Gubrud in the 52-31 home victory. He had a career-high 70 receiving yards on three catches versus Montana (9/32/17), including a career-long TD reception of 50 yards and an additional scoring catch of 2 yards. In all, he rushed for at least 50 yards in six of the 10 games he played. McPherson rushed 17 times for 51 yards and a touchdown in three spring scrimmages, and also caught five passes for 48 more yards.

2016: Was named to the Big Sky Conference All-Academic team. He finished his sophomore season with 132 rushing yards with a TD, and 23 receptions for 167 yards and a score. He played in all 14 games, and also returned a pair of punts for 23 yards. His top rushing performance was 46 yards and a touchdown on 10 carries versus Northern Colorado (10/8/16), and he also caught eight passes for 68 yards in that game. He caught four passes for 57 yards one game later versus Montana State (10/22/16). He was EWU’s special teams player of the week against Richmond (12/10/16) in the FCS Playoffs for a performance which included a 19-yard punt return in the 38-0 win.

2015: Was named to the Big Sky Conference All-Academic team. He played in six games as a true freshman, but missed three games from Oct. 31 to Nov. 14 with a knee injury. Prior to that, an ankle injury kept him of two others in early October. He finished the season with 40 yards rushing and caught two passes for 29 more yards. He also returned six kickoffs for a 24.0 average with a long of 33. His first carry as an Eagle came against Oregon (9/5/15) when he had three yards on a pair of carries. Later in the year he had a season-high 20 yards on five rushes versus Northern Colorado (10/24/15), and one game earlier had a 29-yard reception against Idaho State (10/17/15). The first kickoff return of his career was 33 yards against Idaho State (10/17/15), and he closed the year with four for 89 yards versus Portland State (11/21/15).

HS: Graduated from Bothell HS in 2015. McPherson was a first-team 4A All-State selection by the Associated Press as both a running back and defensive back. He was named by the Seattle Times as a “Red Chip” selection as one of the top 18 prospects in the state of Washington. Rated as a two-star recruit and was also ranked as the 40th best prospect (fourth among running backs) in the state of Washington by Scout.com. He was also named to the Seattle Times Star-Times team as an athlete. As a senior in 2014, he had 1,079 yards rushing and 20 touchdowns before suffering a knee injury that ended his season. He also caught 15 passes for 252 yards and three TDs, returned nine punts and averaged 20.4 yards per return and returned three kickoffs for a 50.7 yard average with one score. McPherson was named the 4A KingCo Crest Division Offensive Player of the Year and was the co-Defensive Player of the Year. Bothell won the State 4A championship, defeating Chiawana 24-14 and ending the season with a 14-0 record. Prior to the season, he was named to Ron Siegel’s Pre-Season Senior All-State first-team as a defensive back and the Seattle Times pre-season all-state football team. As a junior in 2013, McPherson was named the KingCo 4A Crest Division Offensive Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year. He was also named to The Seattle Times Star-Times team as an athlete. In his first year as a starter, he had 159 carries for 1,317 yards rushing (8.3 yards per carry) with 22 touchdowns. He also had two receiving touchdowns and returned five kickoffs for TDs. Defensively, he intercepted seven passes. He was selected for the All-KingCo Crest Division first team as a running back, safety and return specialist, and led the league in all-purpose yards and interceptions. Also played baseball at Bothell, hitting .324 with four doubles, five triples and nine stolen bases as a junior in 2014. He also hit .341 as a sophomore.

Personal: Interdisciplinary studies major and has a 3.75 grade point average thus far at EWU. He hopes to go into the aerospace industry. Born 2/2/97 in Kirkland, Wash. His parents are Isaac and Lisa McPherson.

 

Year	GP	Car	Yds	Hi	Apc	Apg	TD	Lg
2015	6	16	40	20	2.5	6.7	0	11
2016	14	35	132	46	3.8	9.4	1	19
2017	10	80	477	118	6.0	47.7	2	55
Totals	30	131	649	118	5.0	21.6	3	55

 

Year	GP	PC	Hi	Yds	Apr	Apg	TD	Lg
2015	6	2	1	29	14.5	0.3	0	29
2016	14	23	8	167	7.3	1.6	1	32
2017	10	19	4	252	13.3	1.9	4	50
Totals	30	44	8	448	10.2	1.5	5	5

Kickoff Returns: 2016/0-minus5, 2015/6-144-24.0 (long of 33), Total/6-139-23.2
Punt Returns: 2016/2-23 (long of 19)
Passing: 2017/2-of-2-45-2td (long of 43t), 2016/1-of-1-32-1td (long of 32t), Total/3-of-3-77-3td


SAM McPHERSON Top Rushing Performances (1 with 100+)
8 carries, 118 yards, 0 TD – North Dakota – 11/11/17
 
SAM McPHERSON Long Plays of 40+ Yards (3)
55 yard rush – North Dakota – 11/11/17
50 yard reception (TD from Gage Gubrud) – Montana – 9/23/17
40 yard reception (TD from Gage Gubrud) – UC Davis – 10/7/17