Western-Star.com

CINCINNATI — He hasn't played a down for the Cincinnati Bengals. In fact, he just got drafted. But already he's received more of an embrace from Ohio football fans than nearly any player on the team.

"Yeah, I have a good fan base there," Corey Lynch said with a chuckle.

He told of the Ohio car dealer who, once he heard what he'd done, promised, "Man, I'll give him a deal on any car he wants."

Then there was the guy who knew his college coach: "I think the Indians were in the running for the World Series, and he asked my coach if I could sign his jersey from (Lynch's college). ... So I sent it to him. So he was walking up to the Indians' stadium, and all the Ohio State fans stood and started clapping for him once they saw the shirt."

He got so many computer messages, his e-mail system over-loaded. "They would say I was the hero of their life," he laughed. "I was like, 'What's going on?' "

That's simple. He'd become a Buckeye legend for the way he deflated the football dreams of the rival Michigan Wolverines.

More than any other guy on the Appalachian State team last September, Lynch was responsible for what's considered one of the biggest upsets in American sports history.

The No. 5 Wolverines were derailed by I-AA Appalachian State 34-32 in a season opener that Las Vegas oddsmakers figured would be such a mismatch they refused to set a betting line.

Lynch not only made 11 tackles — including three third-down stops and another on fourth — but he blocked the Wolverines game-winning 37-yard field-goal attempt on the last play and, with cramping legs, ran the ball back 62 yards before getting pushed out of bounds near the end zone.

When the Mountaineers got back to Boone, N.C., from Ann Arbor, Lynch said, "There were 10,000 students at the stadium, and it was 2 in the morning. It's something I'll never forget."

How can he? Highlights from the game — especially his block — continually show up on ESPN.

"It's kind of a funny," the free safety said after being taken by the Bengals in the sixth round of the NFL draft, Sunday, April 27. "We watched it on TV today with my family, and I said, 'One day I'm going to make it to the end zone.' "

While unable to get to the goal line on that play, he did get a big score from it. It introduced him to football fans — and NFL coaches — everywhere.

And once you study his college career — National Defensive Player of the Year last season, a three-time All-American on a team that won three straight I-AA national titles — you've got to be impressed.

Yet when Bengals coach Marvin Lewis raved about him Sunday, Lynch wasn't cowed by it. He talked of bringing some "game-changing plays" to the team, then thanked Jesus Christ: "I believe he's led me to the Bengals for another great career."

So just as Lynch finds an avenue to the kicker, he's got some special pipeline to that Big Coach up above?

Well, on New Year's Eve he did marry Sissie Graham — granddaughter of the Rev. Billy Graham.

"We normally call him Daddy Bill," Lynch admitted. "He watches all our games."

So the fabled evangelist may start pulling for Cincinnati?

That could be the best news of the Bengals draft.

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