Jesse Legree – the nation's most exciting freshman and a midseason CBS Sports All-America selection – announced to the world Friday from his home gym in Baltimore, Maryland, that he will be returning to Oregon State for his sophomore season. Legree made the announcement and re-signed with the Beavers live on CBS Sports HQ. Legree's intent during the bye week was to put to rest doubts about his future and quiet portal whispers that had already begun as scouting departments around the country, beginning to devise their 2027 roster-building plans, took full notice of the 5-foot-9 Legree's exploits in Corvallis: 46 receptions and a nation-leading 1,040 yards and 14 touchdowns.
Last December, he watched his teammates at St. Frances Academy in Baltimore sign with the likes of Alabama and Auburn. Legree was an unheralded three-star prospect with few high-level offers and no signing day home, at least during the school's morning celebrations.
Legree grew up a basketball player and played defensive back his first three years of high school football. He joked with CBS Sports in early October that he "barely knew Oregon was a state." But newly minted Beavers general manager Eron Hodges had seen Legree while he and new OSU coach JaMarcus Shephard were at Alabama during the 2025 season, the byproduct of scouting and recruiting Bama signee Jireh Edwards, a teammate of Legree's at St. "The day I got the job, Eron called me and said, 'Hey, watch this kid right now.' And I watched him right away, knowing that Eron was gonna come out here and be the GM with me," Shephard said.
"And I was like, 'Yeah, we need to go get him. Let's get him.' And we started that process the day that I got the job, and so he was the first kid that I watched as the head football coach here at Oregon State, and he was the first person that I knew for sure we wanted on our team. "Now, if I'm just being transparent, I didn't know for sure how good of a receiver he was.
You know, his highlight tape has him doing a lot of returns. But I also watched some of his basketball stuff. You can see his quickness, change of direction, explosiveness, ability to track the ball, and all that stuff.
And you're really just hoping that all that would translate into a receiver." Oregon State called late in the day on the opening day of Early Signing Period, long after his teammates had signed and had their moment. His high school coach, Messay Hailemariam, received a text from Hodges that said, "he has a home with us if he wants it. We want to take him." Hailemariam remembers interrupting his team during a film session to share the news.
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