West Virginia will be down their starting placekicker for the remainder of the season after Evan Staley was injured in a freak mishap against Kansas State.

Staley was injured on a kickoff return attempting to make a tackle and didn’t return against the Wildcats. He will require surgery, which thrusts redshirt sophomore Casey Legg into the forefront.

Legg is a unique story in the sense that he had never kicked in a football game prior to arriving on campus in Morgantown. In high school Legg was a soccer player, but had a strong leg and found himself as a kicker at West Virginia where he filled in last season while Staley dealt with a groin injury.

The walk-on fared well in his stint, earning the trust of the coaches with his performance.

During that time, he filled in five games, handling primarily kickoffs, but he also kicked four field goal attempts and connected on two of those including a 51-yarder against Kansas State. Now he’s going to be asked to do the same over the final four game of the year for the Mountaineers.

Legg connected on all six of his kick attempts this past Saturday hitting a pair of field goals and four extra points after coming into the game for Staley. It was a step in the right direction for Legg, who also handled all of the kickoff for the Mountaineers. That experience he was able to get in the games last season was invaluable for his development heading into this unexpected role.

“He’s got experience. He never gets too high or too low,” head coach Neal Brown said. “He’s not a guy that succumbs to pressure. He’s got a great personality to be a specialist.”

Now, all of the duties will be thrust onto the leg of Legg.

“He has the support of our team and our staff and we don’t have any questions he’ll step in and be productive for us,” Brown said.

----------

• Talk about it with West Virginia fans on The Blue Lot.

• SUBSCRIBE today to stay up on the latest on Mountaineer sports and recruiting.

• Get all of our WVU videos on YouTube by subscribing to the WVSports.com Channel

• Follow us on Twitter: @WVSportsDotCom, @rivalskeenan, @JaredSerre

•Like us on Facebook