Lock staying busy

DALLAS - If anyone has reason to feel bogged down by athletics, it's Drew Lock. The 2015 Lee's Summit (Mo.) High School quarterback turned up at the Rivals250 Underclassmen Challenge presented by Under-Armour, and started talking basketball before he ever stepped on the football field at DeSoto (Texas) High School.

See, Lock is a road warrior of sorts. And his trip to the Dallas area was just sneak peak at the traveling he'll start doing for the AAU hoops circuit. He's scheduled to appear on basketball courts in St. Louis, Las Vegas and Milwaukee in the near future.

On top of that, he has two sports worth of the whole recruitment thing to deal with.

"I find my off days where I can relax a little bit, but I guess I'm kind of used to it," Lock said. "I've been doing it forever. I actually kind of like it."

He isn't too busy to hear what people are saying, though. Lock knows that his ties to Missouri have some tabbing him as a Tiger-to-be. He doesn't confirm the suspicion outright, but the rising junior understands why that school of thought exists.

He doesn't exactly dispute the notion, either.

"I mean, I can see why everyone thinks that," Lock said. "Missouri is the hometown school and they want to let me play both sports and my dad played there and all that. And, yeah, I would say I lean a little toward Missouri, but it's not everything I'm looking at or leaning towards. You know?"

Then there's this: Notre Dame is lurking comfortably and somewhat quietly on the periphery of Lock's recruitment. He impressed at a camp at South Bend and, by all accounts, is well on his way to securing a Irish offer. Should that take place, Brian Kelly's program will immediately become a threat to Mizzou's perceived standing as the undisputed top dog.

"The last conversation I had with Coach Kelly was him telling me he thought I was a good fit for them," Lock said. "They feel like our styles and timetables will mesh and when the time comes, we'll make a good decision."

Lock holds just two football offers as things stand now (Missouri and Louisville, but Tennessee has recently cranked up its courtship of Lock. And, in an effort to reciprocate the interest, the two-sport star has found a way to jam an unofficial visit to Knoxville into his packed schedule.

"They want me to come down there to see what's going on and get to know that new coaching staff, Lock said. "We're going down there sometime in the next two weeks. Tennessee talked about basketball a little, too. That's big. The football staff said they would get in touch with the basketball staff."