Three-star WR training for career at Baylor
Mesquite (Texas) North Mesquite wide receiver Lanear Sampson had an earlier end to his senior season than he would have hoped, but he doesn't plan to take much time to dwell over it. After a 34-24 first round playoff loss to Dallas (Texas) Carter, North Mesquite ended the season with a 4-7 record.
"It could've been better," Sampson said. "We got new coaches in this year and a lot of people were real inexperienced. A lot of young people got experience this year. But we were in a lot of games and never got beat by more than 10 points. A lot of the games were like 7-point games."
Advertisement
Personally, Sampson lived up to his three-star rating with a productive season catching the ball.
"I had a pretty decent year," he said. "At the end of the season I was no. 5 in the area in receiving yards. I had 882 yards with 49 catches and six touchdowns. My expectations were a little higher but it was just that a lot of stuff happens during the season."
One reason why Sampson may have had to settle for some lower numbers than he had hoped was the production of his teammate, three-star receiver Daymond Patterson. Patterson is committed to play at Kansas and the two are ready to hit the weight room for off-season training.
"Right now I'm going to be training with another receiver, Daymond Patterson, who is committed to Kansas," Sampson said. "We're both D-I players so we had to split a lot of yards. He had a pretty good year. We've been playing football together since we were like six years old."
Sampson also knows that despite his 4.4-speed and 37-inch vertical leap, there are always skills to work on.
"I'm looking forward to working on my footwork," he said. "I just want to get my footwork down, my lateral movement. Straight ahead speed is easy for me. I need to get back in the weight room and get my weight back."
The benefactor of all of this hard work is scheduled to be the Baylor football program and despite some uncertainty at the coaching position there, Sampson is still firmly committed to the Bears.
"I really like Baylor and really want to go to Baylor," he said. "I'm going to look and see who is coming in and exactly what is going on. Baylor is close to home, it's a great education and I like the offense that they run. It could change but as of right now, it's just Baylor."
Colorado and Iowa State are two schools that have been picking up interest in Sampson but as of right now, he only has one school he plans to visit and that is Baylor in January.