Jesse Legree Is Staying at Oregon State Through 2028: What the Nation’s Leading Receiver Just Passed Up
Eleven months ago, Oregon State was the only FBS school in the country that offered Jesse Legree a scholarship to play receiver. On Friday, the leading receiver in the sport held an event at his old high school gym in Baltimore to announce he is staying in Corvallis.
“I will be signing to the Oregon State Beavers for the 2027-28 season,” Legree told 247Sports. He also announced and re-signed live on CBS Sports HQ, and ESPN’s Pete Thamel confirmed it with him directly.
The Numbers Are Not Close
Legree, a true freshman listed at 5-10 and 172 pounds, leads all of FBS through seven games with 1,040 receiving yards. He is the only player in the country over 1,000. He also leads in receiving touchdowns with 14 and in yards per game at 148.6, roughly eight yards clear of Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith. He has 46 catches at 22.6 yards a pop.
He has gone over 100 yards in all seven games, an Oregon State program record that broke Mike Hass’s mark of five, and he has scored in every one of them. His best nights: eight catches for 240 yards and two scores against Texas Tech, and 10 for 191 and three against San Diego State. He has won Pac-12 Freshman of the Week seven straight times and sat fourth in the On3 Heisman poll after Week 7.
The Transfer Talk Was Thinner Than It Sounded
This is the part worth being careful about. The reporting around Legree referred to portal whispers and speculation that he could end up at an elite Power Four program, but no outlet named a single school with reported interest in him. The transfer portal does not even open until Jan. 4. Nothing specific was ever alleged, so nothing specific was ever denied.
What was real was the money conversation. Chad Johnson, the former Oregon State receiver who became Chad Ochocinco in Cincinnati, pledged $2 million of his own on his Nightcap podcast: “Hey, you give him $2 million, I give him $2 million. That’s $4 million right there.” Legree addressed it afterward. “Just knowing someone of that status wanting to see my back in Corvallis is just surreal,” he told The Baltimore Banner.
The actual value of his new deal has not been reported by any named outlet. The term has: through the 2027-28 season.
Why He Stayed
Legree pointed at the program rather than the payday. “I fell in love with the culture out there,” he told ESPN. “We’ve built a great culture and it’s only going to get bigger from here. This is going to become the start of a national powerhouse.”
He also pointed at his head coach. “I just know that coach Shep is going to grow this organization to something different in the next couple of years,” he said. JaMarcus Shephard is in his first season after two years coaching receivers at Alabama, and he has Oregon State at 5-2 overall and 3-0 in conference, sitting in first place in the rebuilt Pac-12 a half-game up on Boise State. This team went 2-10 last year.
The two losses came in the first two weeks, 33-20 at Houston and 35-24 against Texas Tech. Five straight wins have followed, all by double digits, the latest 48-30 over Washington State. The offense ranks sixth nationally in yards per play at 7.32, fifth in yards per game at 527, and fourth in scoring at 42.7 points.
The Real Story Is the Recruiting Miss
Shephard said Oregon State general manager Eron Hodges called him about Legree the day he got the job. “He was the first recruit that we called and talked to when we got here,” Shephard told On3. Hodges texted the coach at Saint Frances Academy: “he has a home with us if he wants it.”
Every other program in the country watched the same tape and passed. Oregon State plays at Fresno State on Oct. 31, and it has the best receiver in college football signed for two more years because it was the only school willing to make the call.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
