Surahz Buncom will visit Kansas next month

The Kansas coaching staff is giving a high level of attention to Surahz Buncom. The athlete from California is hearing from several coaches on the Jayhawks staff.

“I've been building a relationship with the coaches for a little while now,” Buncom said. “It started with the previous receiver coach, Coach Jones, but I've been in contact with the new receiver coach, Coach Samuel. When he was hired, he reached out to me via Twitter.

“The people I talk to the most, I'd probably say is the General Manager, Coach Rob and the Director of Recruiting, Greg Svarczkopf.”

The coaches have used a group effort getting several individuals involved to build relationships with Buncom. Assistant offensive line coach Bill Queisert has been a big part of working with him.

“Coach Queisert does a really good job recruiting me as far as answering the concerns I have about KU and explaining to me how well KU covers the parts of what I am looking for into a school,” Buncom said.

Earlier in the week Buncom did not know if he could make it to the Kansas junior day event in March, but that changed on Friday when he announced will make the trip from California.

"I’m really looking forward to visiting the area and getting to know the culture,” he said. “With me living way over here in Cali, I don’t know too much about Kansas. But from what I’ve heard and learned over the past year, it is a great place. KU football is definitely looking up.”

Buncom plays at Mater Dei Catholic and came off a solid season helping his team win a state championship. He is a talented athlete and is picking up offers on both sides of the ball, but the Jayhawks are looking at him to play wide receiver.

“I played receiver more, I'd say, but I started at both positions,” Buncom said. “Throughout the playoff run, I didn't play defense as much because our coaches wanted to preserve my energy for offense.”

Buncom has posted several graphics from KU and said he gets a lot of them sent from head coach Lance Leipold.

“The talks with Coach Leipold are great,” he said. “He has shared multiple exuberant, cool looking graphics with me. He has told me how excited he is to get me up on campus and that I could make an immediate impact.”

This will be the first year Buncom does not play baseball for his high school. He will change up his scheduled this spring and run track.

“The decision to run tracks is because I've grown more of a love for football than I do baseball and I see that my recruiting is taking off for football, more so than baseball,” he said. “So, I decided it would be smarter for me to not play high school baseball and run track in order to get faster and prepare for football. I'll probably still play travel baseball, but I'm just going to run high school track instead of baseball.”

Buncom has picked up early offers from schools including Kansas, BYU, Pitt, Arizona and others. He will get a better look at the University of Kansas School of Business on his upcoming visit.

“Definitely the academics is a huge factor,” Buncom said. “Mainly the business program. Building relationships with the coaches, being comfortable with the environment, and feeling at home. I would say those are probably the biggest things, for sure. The academic prestige and building relationships with the coaches is important.”