Following an impactful first season as a member of the Illinois Fighting Illini football program, Dominic Stampley has decided to call it a career in Champaign after two years. Probably.
On his personal Twitter account this week, Stampley announced that “I feel as if my best option is to remove [myself] from the [U]niversity of Illinois and enter the transfer portal.” The wide receiver confirmed that he would be leaving the Illinois Fighting Illini football team as a graduate transfer.
Stampley could always pull his name from the portal and remain with Lovie Smith‘s team as well.
“First I would just say that these last two years have been a hell of a ride in my football career,” Stampley wrote in his tweet. “I want to first, thank all of my teammates who welcomed me to the program with open arms, glad to call you guys brothers for life. I would like to thank coach Lovie Smith for giving me a 1 in a million shot, and I am very appreciative of that till this day.”
Business is business ✌🏽
— Dominic stampley (@Quiick_6) January 20, 2020
The Return⏳ pic.twitter.com/MGrBz2oL1R
Stampley came to the Illinois Fighting Illini football team in 2018 after spending the first two seasons of his career at Coffeyville Community College in Kansas.
His first season with the Illini, Stampley caught 19 passes for 153 yards and two touchdowns. In a late October loss to Maryland that year, he totaled 153 yards and both touchdowns on four catches. Included in that was an 84-yard touchdown catch that was the third-longest pass play in school history.
Stampley, who went to high school in Champaign, couldn’t build off of that promising debut, however, as he caught just nine passes for 101 yards this past season. He appeared in nine games in 2019.
The Illini are coming off a season in which they played in their first bowl game since 2014. That, though, turned into a Redbox Bowl loss to Cal.
