The routes Shane Leatherbury runs on Saturdays are crisp, concise and efficient, but the one the wide receiver took to get to Towson was not.

“I could’ve easily walked away,” Leatherbury said. “I was back home, going to school and at a little community college. A lot of guys back home just stay there.”

James Madison hosts Towson on Saturday at 3:30 p.m., and if there’s one player the Dukes’ defense must identify prior to each snap, it’s Leatherbury.

He’s tied for sixth nationally with eight touchdown catches through eight weeks of play and had five scoring grabs in the Tigers’ win over Bucknell this past weekend.

“He’s aggressive and he’s confident,” JMU safety D’Angelo Amos said. “You can see he’s confident when he runs routes. He’s confident he’s going to get the ball every play and he’s got no problem blocking for his teammates as well. Then there’s a couple of times you see him trying to flag down [Towson quarterback Tom] Flacco and it’s like ‘come this way, I’ll help you out,’ so just seeing that and seeing that he’s an all-around player and receiver with confidence, I think that’s his biggest weapon.”

And the conviction Leatherbury plays with didn’t happen by accident.

The 5-foot-11, 190-pounder, who was an All-Colonial Athletic Association first-team choice last season, had to have it in order to become one of the best receivers in all of FCS.

See, Leatherbury’s college career began at Division II Seton Hill, where he spent his freshman year, before sitting out the entire 2016 season while in pursuit of transferring to a Division I program. He attended Wor-Wic Community College in his hometown of Salisbury, Md., and did anything he could to keep his dream of playing at the upper level of college football alive.

Leatherbury worked out on his own, kept his grades in good standing and even landed a job that brought him as close to the action as any responsibility would’ve outside of playing or coaching.

“So I worked for a company in Salisbury called 47ABC,” Leatherbury said. “I was a photog and would shoot high school games, do stuff like that. I was doing a little editing.

“But it definitely kept me going to be around the game with seeing young guys make it and playing really well. I’d even shoot college games and I was glad I could see the sport, see it be played and I think seeing it from a different view made me realize sometimes you take things for granted. So seeing it from a different angle, you’re like, ‘I can’t take this for granted.’ You could be right there and once it’s over, it’s over and when you’re looking from the outside in, sometimes you can’t see that when you’re in the moment.”

Leatherbury said the break he needed finally came when his mentor, Dustin Johnson, from Salisbury and the coach at Division III William Paterson, contacted former Towson offensive coordinator Jared Ambrose, the brother of Towson coach Rob Ambrose, about Leatherbury.

The Tigers had a walk-on spot for the receiver and without hesitation Leatherbury accepted.

“It wasn’t like I had a whole bunch of options,” Leatherbury said with a laugh.

“We knew who he was coming out of high school,” Rob Ambrose said. “He was an overly small guy who played quarterback and he was the best player on his team, but it would’ve been a complete and utter projection to make him a wide out. And no offense, but he’s not real tall either. So there was a reason why nobody really bit on him in high school and why he had to take the route that he did.

“But along the way, he said, ‘Look, I know I’m better than this. I know I can play at this level and I just need a shot.’”

And since arriving at Towson ahead of the 2017 season, Leatherbury has only positively impacted the program, according to his coach.

Primarily used in the slot, he’s tallied four multi-touchdown games in his career and weekly allows the Tigers to use him in anyway they need to. His five touchdown receptions against Bucknell came on five different types of the passes – off play-action, on a run-pass option screen, on a corner route, one to the back shoulder and up the seam.

“I’ve seen him make really hard catches,” JMU coach Curt Cignetti said. “And they’ve got the route tree to the slot receiver whether you’re playing middle-open or middle-close defense, man or zone. And then he’s a big part of the scramble drill. So they can get him the ball on the bubbles, the quick stuff, down the field, double moves and he’s got really good hands.”

Leatherbury said he had never had a five-touchdown performance at any point earlier in his career before Saturday.

“However they come, I try to make the play,” Leatherbury said. “And Tom usually puts it on the money, so it’s up to me. I don’t want to embarrass myself and my coach and all the receivers, so I just try to make the play when I get called.”

Ambrose said he couldn’t be happier and more excited for Leatherbury, who has racked up 1,678 receiving yards and 14 touchdown catches during his unlikely career with the Tigers, entering Saturday’s game against the Dukes.

“The kid is awesome, like as a human being.” Ambrose said. “He’s the kind of guy that you let date your daughter and I’ve got a real hard time saying that since my daughter is in college, but he is that kind of quality, young man. He’s a great kid and he’s one of the hardest-working guys I’ve ever seen in the offseason, ever, and that’s real. He’s maxing out his talent every single day by just trying to get better at everything and those types of guys are contagious.”