A bum ankle, a small college in Kansas and some well-timed name-dropping brought Michael Gallup to CSU.

Before the 263-yard receiving game last week. Before the national hype. Before the talk of how high he could shoot up the NFL draft boards.

Before all of that, there was a long road that led Gallup to become the next Rams star.

“It was a heck of a growing pattern,” said Matt Fligg, who coached Gallup at Monroe Area High School in Georgia.

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Gallup was a star in the powerhouse Monroe Area program, but didn’t immediately make the Division I jump because of low test scores.

Off he went to Butler County Community College far away in the small town of El Dorado, Kansas. Fligg said about 80 percent of the players he sends to junior colleges, especially in the Midwest, for one reason or another end up bouncing back home.

Not Gallup.

When moving off to Butler, he determined was not going to let his football story blow away in Kansas.

Instead he has blown up. The senior 6-foot-1, 200-pound receiver leads the nation in receiving yards (948) and said there’s no such thing as a 50-50 ball when thrown to him .

“It’s pretty much like playing wide receiver for me. You know that 50-50 ball I was saying? It’s mine. You’ve got to go out there and get it,” Gallup said of junior college. “Here we have tutoring, weights, everything’s scheduled. Up there you’re just given a schedule and you’ve got to do it. You’ve got to grow up.”

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He flashed his potential his freshman year. Gallup “started balling right away,” as Fligg said. He had 780 yards and 11 touchdowns. Then came the disastrous sophomore season. Gallup suffered an ankle injury that limited him to four games and 74 receiving yards.

During prime time for DI teams to find junior college stars, Gallup was sidelined. It kept schools in SEC territory away, Fligg said. In January of 2016, he still had no idea what his next step was when a high school coach called to check on him.

“’What are you doing? Where are you going?’” Gallup said his coach asked. “I have no clue,” he responded.

The coach said “well, I’m going to call you back in about 15 minutes.”

But the next time Gallup’s phone rang, it wasn’t his high school coach. It was Colorado State University’s Mike Bobo, who had recruited Gallup while the offensive coordinator at Georgia.

“I got a call from a high school coach that said ‘hey, Michael Gallup is out there and he’s looking for some place to go.’ I pulled up his film, called his junior college coach to ask about him, not just as a player but as a person,” Bobo said. “Everything checked out, got him on the phone that night and offered him a scholarship.”

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Soon after, Gallup was on a recruiting visit with fellow Georgia native and junior college player Detrich Clark, who spent the entire trip trying to convince Gallup they should both become Rams.

But the deal was sealed at the end of the visit, the Sunday morning meeting with Bobo.

“That Sunday morning I talked to the head coach and what he told me was ‘A.J. Green played in the same spot I want to put you in.’ I heard that and that was it,” said Gallup, a 3-star recruit who had offers out of Butler from Kansas State, UNLV and New Mexico.

His first year at CSU Gallup was First-Team All-Mountain West and had 1,272 yards and 14 touchdowns, second most in a season in school history). His second and final season is shaping up to be even better, with Gallup on pace to break the single-season school-record for yards (1,750) set by Rashard Higgins in 2014.

It’s happening because of a single-minded determination to not let a set of unfortunate circumstances derail his career. A CSU star who found his path in the middle-of-nowhere Kansas.

“When he went to Kansas is when he really matured and grew up, especially through his injury,” Fligg said. “Kansas was it. He made his decision.”

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It’s a trait he learned growing up as the youngest of eight children, six of whom are adopted. He learned to take responsibility and get things done.

Including Friday’s game at New Mexico (8:15 p.m., ESPN2), there are five games left in Gallup’s CSU career, plus a possible conference title game and a bowl. He’ll surely be playing in the NFL next season, with projections currently placing him anywhere from a third- to sixth-round pick.

But who really knows? Anything seems possible.

“To see him now, to see what he’s doing, gee, it’s just amazing,” Fligg said. “He makes everybody proud here. He makes Monroe proud.”

Follow sports reporter Kevin Lytle at twitter.com/Kevin_Lytle and at facebook.com/KevinSLytle.

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Michael Gallup file

Year: Senior

Position: Wide receiver

Notable: Leads the nation with 948 receiving yards…Had 263 receiving yards in a win over Nevada last week, two shy of a single-game school record…His 14 receiving touchdowns as a junior ranked second in school history and was eighth in FBS…Was a First-Team All-Mountain West honoree as a junior…Was named this week as an Associated Press Midseason Second-Team All-American.