Catching up with QB Richard Lagow before fall camp starts at Cisco JUCO

Written by Ryan Wright

Cisco sophomore quarterback Richard Lagow was in a difficult position heading into his sophomore season. The automatic qualifier out of high school caught the attention of six colleges after throwing for over 2,900 yards with 29 touchdowns as a freshman but was left in an uncertain grey area not knowing if he should press forward at Cisco in hopes of landing an offer from a Power 5 school or roll with one of the offers from Southeast Louisiana, Towson, Central Arkansas, Lamar, Florida A&M, or Prairie View A&M.

Lagow (6’6”, 240) went all in on himself and his Cisco teammates deciding to return to the Texas JUCO for his sophomore year and one more shot at going through the recruiting circuit one last time.

I caught up with Richard to get one last interview in before fall camp starts and the workload along with the class load picks up immensely. In a Recruiting News Guru exclusive interview I wanted to get one last look at how Cisco is stacking up heading into fall camp and get inside the tough decision the Clash rocked so well – “Should I Stay or Should I Go?”

Richard, Cisco is just a month shy of putting the helmets on and officially getting ready for the 2015 season. What day does fall camp officially begin for you?

“I think we report on August 2. I know we begin on August 6.”

What have you been doing over the summer to prepare for fall camp and the 2015 season? Have you started increasing the amount of times you’re throwing each week and the length of your throwing sessions?

“Yeah, I have been throwing a lot everyday to get ready. Camp is long and it takes a lot out of you so I’ve made sure I am ready for that. I’ve been doing a lot of cardio too. That is what camp is all about, conditioning and trying to get ready for the season. The coaches start trying to weed some of the guys out to see who will make the team. I’m just getting ready for that because I know its coming.”

You were an automatic qualifier coming out of high school so you could very easily be at a 4-year school right now. How difficult of a decision was it for you to decide to return to Cisco for your sophomore season?

“It was real hard. I thought about it and changed my mind everyday for a couple of months. I’d wake up and say “you know, I’m going to leave” and later in the day I’d say “naw, I’m going back to Cisco.”

“It was good to think about it and have all of that time to figure out what I really want to do. When it came down to it I had some really great offers from some really good schools with great coaching staffs, which I am really grateful for. In my mind I made a commitment to some of these guys that are coming back to Cisco. I know I have to do what’s best for me but I do feel like this is what is best for me and I don’t want to turn my back on some of the guys that I told I’d be there in the fall. I told them you should come to Cisco and we’ll make some plays and win a bunch of games. I didn’t want to turn my back on them and make it seem like I lied to them just to try to get them there and the next thing they know I’m not even there.”

Without naming any of the schools that you were contemplating attending directly this offseason, what offers do you currently hold?

“I had offers from Southeast Louisiana, Towson, Central Arkansas, Lamar, Florida A&M, Prairie View A&M and that’s it.”

When we last spoke you were receiving a lot of attention after balling out a JUCO camp (Camp Paragon) on the USC campus. USC, Washington, and Arizona State all were in attendance and each took interest in you, have you been in contact with them since and are any new schools showing interest in your now?

“Yeah, I’ve talked to them since then. It basically came down that they were not going to take a quarterback over the summer going into the fall. It’s pretty late and they’ve already started the process, summer school, summer workouts, and all of that. That’s the first time I got in front of them.

“That is one of the reasons I thought it would be best for me to come back to Cisco for another year. Now those schools out there on the west coast, the Pac-12 schools, they know about me, know what I can do, and have seen me in person. Now going into the fall, if they were to need a quarterback – “What’s that Cisco kid doing? How is his season going?” I expect to have a great year. We have some great kids coming in and it should be a lot of fun.

“As far as other schools that are interested in me, I’m not sure. My coach (Dionte Dean), the schools reach out to him and he’ll tell me every couple of days, “Schools are calling about you everyday.” He does not like giving me names of schools because he does not want to get my hopes up just in case. A lot of times schools will call up to find out about a kid but will have no intention of really recruiting that kid. He doesn’t really tell us which schools are calling. He doesn’t want to get our hopes up and it turns into nothing. But at the same time he likes to let us know that schools are calling.”

You’ve mentioned that you have some great guys coming to campus joining the team in the fall. Who are some of the guys that are returning and some of the guys coming in that we should keep an eye on this year?

“We have Antonio Kanonu, the cornerback from Arkansas Baptist, coming. We have an offensive lineman from Weber State who is transferring in. Another offensive lineman transferring in from Texas A&M Commerce. I know there are some young receivers coming in from high school.

“Coach has showed me there tape and they look very promising. We have a great group of receivers already, we really do. Being able to create that competition will be tremendous because like I said, the ones that are already there, those jokers can play. Having those young kids come in who are hungry, trying to compete, and earn a job, it’ll help the whole team tremendously. Every position on the team will have a lot of competition which will be great because I don’t think we had that last year. We didn’t have a whole lot of competition within ourselves. That’s how you get stronger as a team is competing against each other. We didn’t have that last year but we will this year.”

What are the names of a couple of receivers returning from last year’s squad that will catch attention during the 2015 season?

“Our leading receiver from last year is coming back, Marcus Daggs (20 receptions, 485 yards, 7 touchdowns). It wouldn’t be a breakout year for him because he is already out there. We have another receiver, Andrew Mapps. He wasn’t starting for us last year but got hurt in training camp. They slapped a redshirt on him and he’s going to have a big season.”

Photo credit: Cisco C.C.; Richard Lagow.