KALAMAZOO, MI - After closing out his junior season with more than 1,200 yards and first team all-conference honors, Western Michigan’s LeVante Bellamy expected big things from his senior year in 2019.

The speedy running back wasn't alone, as he earned preseason spots on the Maxwell Award Watch List, which recognizes the nation's best overall players, and the Doak Walker Award Watch List, which recognizes the country's best running backs.

But back in January, Bellamy acquired an E. coli infection, which caused him to go from 190 pounds to 155 in a matter of weeks.

"Being a senior, you have an image in your head that your last run has to be perfect, and then you hit a bump in the road, so I didn't know how this was going to go," he said.

For the first two weeks of his illness, doctors didn't know what was causing Bellamy's symptoms.

Since it was in the heart of flu season, influenza was the first guess, but the duration of his ailment eventually led doctors to the proper diagnosis.

"It was a very long month and a half," he said. "For about the first two weeks, they didn't know what it was. I was battling through it and was really sick, and they thought it was the flu maybe because it was the winter time.

"After they figured it out, I started getting a little better, but I was super out of shape and lost a lot of weight, so it was hard to lift; it was hard to eat again."

By the third week in February, Bellamy started feeling better, but it wasn't until mid-March that he was anywhere close to his previous weight of 190 pounds.

He was feeling well enough to participate in spring ball throughout the month of March, but he was far from his physical peak.

"I tried to rush myself in spring ball because I love to play this game, and it wasn't working out, so we slowed it down and started with conditioning," Bellamy said. "We got really heavy on the food and the weights and eventually I started to roll again."

The last time Bellamy remembers weighing 155 pound was during his eighth-grade year, so adding 35 pounds back on to his 5-foot-9 frame seemed like a tall task, but with help from WMU strength and conditioning coach Grant Geib, he's now back up to 188 pounds and even faster than last year, as evidenced by his program-record 4.28-second time in the 40-yard dash during summer work outs.

"G2 (Geib), he's one of the best weight room guys I've ever had. He has a plan for you," Bellamy said. " We have a meal plan, and he makes sure he's taking care of his guys, and that they stay on the food, the water, the fluid intake. He made sure everything came along for me."

WMU offensive coordinator Jake Moreland echoed Bellamy's thoughts on Geib based on how he was able to get the senior back up to speed so quickly.

"As soon as (Bellamy) was able to get back to baseline, the weight just comes on because of the way that we train," Moreland said. "G2 is unbelievable with what he does with our guys as far as educating our guys with nutrition, what they do in the weight room, and then with the recovery part.

"I think the recovery part is something that's newish on the scene, and I think our guys do a great job listening to the education that they're getting, and they try to put it to use. Because of that, over the time we allotted him, he's done a great job of being able to put that weight back on."

During his first four years at WMU, Bellamy served as a change-of-pace running back that provided a big-play threat to complement bruisers Jarvion Franklin and Jamauri Bogan.

This year will be the first in which he doesn't split carries with Franklin or Bogan, and even though he prides himself on being able to run the ball on the edge and between the tackles, he's not built like a typical workhorse running back, so WMU head coach Tim Lester got creative when exploring ways to use Bellamy this season.

"He's a different type of ball player than a Bogan or a Jarvion Franklin, so we spent some time at Clemson and called a lot of people I know about having more of a feature back that has a little different skillset than the others and just ways to maximize the touches I'm getting him," Lester said. "Last year was the first year he ever made it through clean (injury free), so I don't want to overload his plate, but every time he gets the ball in his hands, something special can happen."

"He's a very heady back," Lester added. "There are certain times I feel very confident giving him the ball on fourth-and-1 because he knows how to find everything. He doesn't need to go to the house sometimes; he'll make sure he gets that first down.

"He does a lot in the passing game, which Jarv and Bogs didn't necessarily have in their games, and we have a senior quarterback that can get him the ball, so we're going to make sure we get him the ball as many ways as possible."

Bellamy's back up, fellow senior Davon Tucker, is a 5-foot-8, 210-pound runner with a similar skillset to Franklin and Bogan, and he has accumulated 439 yards and seven touchdowns in his career, but after that, the running back room is filled with freshmen and junior college transfers who have yet to take a Division-I snap.

Because of that inexperience and Bellamy's status as a senior, he's made a point to help the young runners and make sure the program is in good hands after he leaves.

"I make sure I stay after practice a lot, and we go over drills, we go over footwork," Bellamy said. "I make sure to ask them a lot of questions about pass protection because that's important in being a running back.

“I feel like my role is to be a player, but also a teacher because it is my last year.”