Samuel Same is staying in contact with Kansas coaches

Samuel Same has been juggling his football recruiting with track and choir, which has been taking up most of his time as the school year comes to a close.

The defensive end from Derby has been busy talking with college coaches and mixing that in with choir.

“I do choir with our school,” Same said. “I'm very passionate about that. We just recently had a competition out in Oklahoma City that we won. Then we just had our end of the year concert on earlier in the month and those went well.”

Kansas is one of the coaching staffs Same has been staying on contact with. He recently was on a call with head coach Lance Leipold.

“We were just checking up about how I've been doing,” Same said. “I haven't been back up to KU in a little bit, so that's been some of the conversations between me and Coach O as well. They have asked about my next time to be able to come back up there.

“Coach Leipold was just checking up on how things have been going. How I have been doing in track and my singing.”

Defensive ends coach Taiwo Onatolu took over Same’s recruiting for the Jayhawks earlier in the year when they had staff changes.

Kansas has used a group approach to stay in contact with him.

“I've been staying in touch with the Kansas coaches, mainly Coach O and Coach Borland,” he said. “Recently I talked to Coach Leipold who was checking up on me. The relationship has still been there and still been growing.

He continued: “It’s all been good, and I have been talking a lot with Coach O. I feel like we're really similar coming from African descent. And we bond through that, and we've always had a pretty good open conversation. It's been good being able to talk to him and build on that.”

Same said he has heard about the culture changing from the coaches and is still waiting to decide where he will take his official visits.

There are several schools making a push for Same and new ones added to the list.

“Nebraska was one of the most recent offers,” he said. “Oregon State has been one of the more recent offers as well. I've been in contact with Illinois, Arkansas State and some more Texas schools. I've been in contact with Houston. Iowa State and K-State have also been in contact.”

Same has been listening to defensive coordinators talk about their scheme and how he would fit. He said some have mentioned playing an outside linebacker in a 3-4 type defense and others a 4-3, where he would play with his hand on the ground.

“The earliest I want to commit I would say is before the season,” Same said. “I don't necessarily have a date and time currently. Some schools have talked about defensive end, some a hybrid defensive end and even just linebacker.

“I’m just seeing where I feel like I would fit best, and what kind of style I feel I would like the most, and I would benefit the most from playing in. After that, I would be able to have more of an idea of kind of what systems and what play styles I would flourish in and make decisions on what school I would like to go to based off of that.”