An official visit can be stressful if a recruit is trying to make his college decision. But for several players who visited Kansas last weekend it was not that way since many were already committed.
Nate Sims, a wide receiver from Ottawa, is one of those players. He committed to Kansas in January and has been on campus several times. The official visit for a group of players was hanging out with their future teammates.
“I think the most important thing was, we had a ton of commits there, so it was just like building a relationship beyond football with all the commits,” Sims said. “Really getting to know all of them and where they're from and what they do and just more about them as people. So, I feel like that was really big for us.”
Sims has been in Lawrence multiple times and viewed the new facilities and stadium renovation. He got to see new parts of the construction on their tour.
“A lot of it I've already seen, but one of the things they showed us that not even a lot of the coaches got to see was the nutrition area inside Anderson Complex,” he said. “It looks over the stadium and is all new. It was really nice.”
Receivers coach Terry Samuel and Sims built a good relationship. Samuel has been recruiting Sims for a year, and they spent time more together on the visit.
“I spent a lot of time with Coach Samuel, and we really worked on our bond and our connection,” Sims said. “We talked about things outside of football. We talked about football a lot and went through meetings, and he showed me drills, and he broke down my film. We also spent a lot of time connecting and bonding and really getting to know each other even more. We already have a really good relationship.”
Sims was hosted by wide receiver Tate Nagy. He got a good idea what it is like to play football at Kansas and how the athletes live.
“Tate did a really good job as my host,” Sims said. “We went to his house, and he showed me around where he's staying at The Hawker. I asked him a bunch of questions, like how early enrolling works and how it benefited him. I asked about the offense and learning the playbook and things like that.”
The committed players did their part to convince others like Ian Premer and Alister Vallejo to join them and choose Kansas.
“We talked to Ian and Alister lot,” he said. “We definitely got on them a lot and I think we really grew on them. At first, we didn't talk as much, but near the end, we were all talking and hanging out and just having a good time together.”
