Love’s trust in staff brings him to Purdue
MORE: Spring football content portal
When it came to bolstering the running back ranks, Purdue coach Ryan Walters turned to a familiar face: Reggie Love.
Love played at Illinois from 2019-23, working under a host of coaches who are now in West Lafayette. Chief among those is Boilermaker wideout coach Cory Patterson, whose roots with Love go back to high school when he was Love’s head coach at Trinity Catholic High in St. Louis.
“I think the biggest thing is trust,” said Love. “I got one more year to do everything right. Him having a good opinion of (running backs coach Lamar) Coach Conard, having trust in him, it was easy for me to talk with Coach Conard and have my trust in him. So, the biggest word for me right now is trust.”
Love brings a solid resume to Purdue, having rushed for 883 yards and six touchdowns the past two seasons at Illinois and 1,053 yards on 240 carries in four years with the Illini. What’s Love bring to the field?
”He’s kind of a combination of Dylan (Downing), who is no longer here, and Tyrone (Tracy),” Conard said. “Reggie catches the ball much more naturally than I expected. He’s got a lot of the same leadership qualities as Tyrone. He’s got the energy and the juice.”
Love is expected to be the sidekick to No. 1 back Devin Mockobee with Tracy off to pursue a pro career and Downing having transferred to Miami (Ohio).
“Knowing that Mock is an established guy, it takes a lot of stress off of me because I know I have somebody that I trust, somebody that made plays in this league that can go out there and ball,” Love said.
Mockobee is excited.
“Reggie is going to be a very good back for us, helping just the running backs split up carries and get us some good production,” Mockobee said.
The ranks behind Mockobee and Love have been thinned with redshirt freshman Christian Womack hitting the portal. That makes promising true freshman Jaheim Merriweather the No. 3 option. And staffers like speedy redshirt freshman walk-on Elijah Jackson, who has been a pleasant surprise.
Love wants to do his part to punctuate his career on a positive note.
“When I was in the portal, I wanted to get around a guy that trusted me, trusted my talents, and was going to ask the best out of me every single day,” Love said. “That’s what I get here, so I love it.”
