Offer would put Tigers in top 3 for elite Peach State DB

Terrance Love, one of the nation’s top safety prospects, has been feeling a lot of love from various schools lately. The highly regarded recruit from Langston Hughes High School (Fairburn, Ga.) estimated he had already heard from around 15 or 20 …

Terrance Love, one of the nation’s top safety prospects, has been feeling a lot of love from various schools lately.

The highly regarded recruit from Langston Hughes High School (Fairburn, Ga.) estimated he had already heard from around 15 or 20 coaches within the first 48 hours after midnight on Sept. 1, when coaching staffs were cleared to start initiating contact with players in the class of 2023 (high school juniors).

“It’s been picking up since September 1st,” Love said of the recruiting process. “It’s been picking up a little bit more since coaches can talk to me and stuff like that.”

When Sept. 1 rolled around, Clemson safeties coach Mickey Conn was among the coaches who wasted no time reaching out to Love, a four-star prospect ranked as high as the country’s No. 3 safety in the 2023 class by Rivals.

“He was just telling me to just keep doing my thing,” Love said, “and hopefully during the season I should pick up the offer from Clemson.”

Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney runs a drill with Terrance Love, Fairburn (Ga.) Langston Hughes 2023 4-star S, during Swinney’s football camp Sunday, June 6, 2021. Bart Boatwright/The Clemson Insider

Love, who has collected more than two dozen offers, dropped a top 12 in late June comprised of Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Georgia Tech, LSU, Notre Dame, Oregon, Stanford, Tennessee, Texas A&M and Virginia Tech.

If Clemson chooses to come into the mix with an offer of its own, Love says it would “mean a lot” and make the Tigers one of the top contenders in his recruitment.

“That’d definitely be a top-three school when I narrow my recruitment down some more, my offers,” he said. “That’d definitely be a top-three school as of now.”

Love doesn’t take lightly the fact he is a Clemson offer candidate and appreciates the interest he has received from the Tigers.

“It means a lot because Clemson’s not a school that just offers anyone,” he said. “So, that means a lot to me. They pretty much pick the guys who they know are built for the school and not guys who are just good in football.”

Love has camped at Clemson a couple of times in the past, including this past June, and impressed the coaches by showing versatility from the safety position that they didn’t expect to see based on his highlight tape.

“What they liked about me is I’m a bigger safety, that I’m very versatile,” he said. “Like, they thought I was just going to be a guy based off film that could just come down in the tackle box. I’m actually a guy who could do a little bit of covering and play a bit in the box as well.”

Love also visited schools such as Alabama, Auburn, Georgia and Georgia Tech during the summer, while he named Clemson, Alabama, Florida, Florida State, Georgia and Notre Dame as some schools he wants to see games at this season.

The sought-after Peach State standout has a timeline in mind for his eventual commitment.

“I want to pretty much make my decision towards the end of this season,” he said. “So, the end of my junior year. But I’m thinking about dropping my commitment on January 1st.”

Love is ranked as a top-100 national prospect in the 2023 class by Rivals, which considers him the No. 71 overall player in the class, No. 3 safety and No. 8 prospect in the state of Georgia.

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