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By Glenn McGraw
One high school recruit may be using an interesting tactic to get out of his signed National Letter of Intent. According to the Austin Statesmen, defensive tackle Du’Vonta Lampkin is spending the remainder of his high school days “tanking his academics.”
The defensive tackle from Houston Cypress Falls appears to be tanking his academics just to avoid playing for the Longhorns. Only Texas might not let him go as freely as he hopes.
Interesting. Typically it’s the exact opposite, with high school athletes doing everything they can to raise their grades so they are eligible to attend the college they signed with.
Lampkin is apparently mailing it in so that he can attend the University of Oklahoma, Texas’ arch-rvial.
The Cypress Creek Mirror reported that he still had to complete a Spanish course to fulfill his foreign language requirements. Lampkin told the newspaper he didn’t want to risk failing the Spanish course and have to enroll in junior college.
“If anything, I may land at Oklahoma,” Lampkin told the Mirror. “So, as soon as everything dials down, I’m going to contact (Bob) Stoops and see if they have any scholarships available for me.”
Sounds like Lampkin is really taking a flyer on a chance that OU will welcome him if he is released from Texas.
Should he be denied admission into UT, his signed National Letter of Intent will no longer be in effect. This is important because it will give him the ability to play for a different school immediately, rather than having to sit out for one season under NCAA transfer rules.
But even if he pulls off this stunt, the Longhorns still hold the the keys to his future.
The Texas admissions office could delay a decision for weeks, possibly months, and that could keep Lampkin sidelined through August training camp. Or he could even be given provisional entry status at UT. If that happened, all NLI penalty rules come into play, and he could lose a year of eligibility.
Texas is also going to discuss letting Lampkin out of his signed NLI.
“Charlie (Strong) and I haven’t sat down and talked about it yet,” athletic director Steve Patterson stated. “Once we get a chance to talk, we’ll look at it.”
You’d have to think that Texas and head coach Charlie Strong would simply want to move on from the headache this is starting to cause. Why make a player stay if he doesn’t want to be there?
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