Mark LeGree, who went from little-known reserve to center-stage star last year, now faces a much-anticipated encore.
Just like his Appalachian State team, which is expected to make another national-title run with many starters returning, LeGree has a tough act to follow.
It's his own.
LeGree set the bar at an atmospheric level in his first season as starting safety, leading the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision's national rankings with 10 interceptions. That total broke a 45-year-old school record and tied a 23-year-old Southern Conference record.
"It would be nice to do the same thing this year," said LeGree, a 6-0, 200-pound junior from Columbus, Ga. "I know it's a tall order. My goal is to stay consistent, though. It might be difficult to get 10 again, but the goal is to be in that range of course."
LeGree began his ASU career as a backup to All-American Corey Lynch, who intercepted 24 passes before moving on to the Cincinnati Bengals.
He began last season with another tall order.
"I was nervous," LeGree said. "I had backed up Corey Lynch and now I had to fill his shoes. I didn't know how I was going to be."
He was good. And he was a star suddenly, after a three-interception game in a 70-24 romp over Wofford. The game was played on Halloween, was televised by ESPN2 and drew a school-record attendance of 30,931.
"It kind of all hit him at once," said John Wiley, ASU's defensive coordinator.
LeGree said that as the interceptions kept adding up, he had to adjust to attention he wasn't used to getting.
"There was a lot of hype about it," said LeGree, who wound up third in voting for the top defensive player in FCS. "Lots of players joke around now, like if I mess up they'll say, ‘Come on, All-American' and all that stuff. There's some pressure there after last season. But I'll be fine."
In fact, LeGree said that he's a lot more comfortable and confident now with a full season in tow.
The question he most often gets is how he got so many interceptions.
"Part of it is luck, of course," LeGree said. "Just being at the right place at the right time. Also it's the defensive line and linebackers putting pressure on the quarterback so he won't make the best throw. Some of it is just studying tape, and some of it is just game situation -- things like if it's third-and-five, they're going for something short."
Most of it is ability, Wiley said. He said that LeGree, despite what Wiley calls an unorthodox stride, is extremely fast.
"He can run," Wiley said. "He runs a lot better than we even thought when we brought him in. He covers a lot of ground. That interception he had against S.C. State last year, that's NFL range."
LeGree's background compares with Lynch's. Both went to small high schools -- LeGree attended Pacelli Catholic, which has little more than 100 students -- and neither was heavily recruited. LeGree wouldn't have wound up at ASU had he not given game tape to a friend who passed it along to a coach.
"One thing we've never done to a huge extent is get caught up on who else is recruiting a kid, or how heavily he's being recruited," Wiley said. "If we all agree that some guy is a player, and Coach (Jerry Moore) likes what he sees on tape, then we move regardless of whether he's being recruited by nobody or everybody."
LeGree turned out to be a good fit. Now it's a matter of dealing with expectations.
"We all expect a lot of each other," LeGree said. "We're a confident team. For one thing, we've won a lot of games and that's just what we expect to do. And the fact we have so many veterans coming back plays into that confidence. It's up to us to back it up and do it."
■ Tommy Bowman can be reached at 727-7320 or at tbowman@wsjournal.com.
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