Top 10 Quarterbacks in the 2020 NFL Draft: No. 4 Jordan Love, Utah State

History

Love’s story starts in Bakersfield, California, where he attended Liberty High School. At a young age, Love was obviously athletic, playing basketball and football throughout his childhood. He started off playing football as a wide receiver, impressing family and friends with his speed.

After suffering the loss of his father, Orbin Love, at fourteen years old, Love continued to push himself athletically. Commenting in an interview that his father’s death had been a catalyst for him to pursue becoming a quarterback.

As a junior and senior, Love’s completion percentages weren’t particularly astounding, hovering around 50 percent, according to MaxPreps.com.

This may explain why Love wasn’t offered a single scholarship from a Power 5 program. Despite the low completion percentage, Love was still producing for his high school team, throwing over 2,000 yards in his senior year of high school, for 24 passing touchdowns, along with 800 yards on the ground for eight touchdowns.

Utah State was the only FBS school that offered Love an opportunity to play after high school. 247 Sports had Love ranked as a three-star recruit in 2016, as the 66th best quarterback in the 2016 recruiting class.

By 247Sports own estimate, Love was the sixth-best player to commit at Utah State in 2016.

Love’s first season playing in 2017 was fairly lackluster, scoring only eight touchdowns on 129 completions. His 2018 campaign, however, saw Love skyrocket up the stats boards and into the national discussion of college quarterbacks.

Leading the Aggies to an 11-2 record, Love threw for 3,567 yards, 32 touchdowns to just six interceptions. It was a tremendous turn around for a college program that has had just seven seasons with a winning record in the last 30 years, per Sports-Reference.com.

And unlike quarterbacks like Tua Tagovailoa and Justin Herbert, who had been big-name quarterback recruits playing for nationally renowned programs, Love came onto the scene unexpectedly. Playing in Logan, Utah, a city with a population of around 50,000 people, Love has had to fight for recognition at the national level.

Unfortunately for Love, success in 2018 led to major changes for the Aggies program. The team’s head coach in 2018, Matt Wells, used his success from the previous season to get the open Texas Tech head coaching job in the offseason. Wells had previously worked as a quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator, putting him in a great position to help Love during his sophomore season.

The school decided to replace Wells with a retread coach in Gary Andersen. Andersen had been the previous head coach for Utah State from 2009 to 2012, eventually leaving to become the head coach of Wisconsin. There he coached the team to a 19-7 record in two seasons before leaving to coach the Oregon State Beavers, where he bottomed out at a 7-23 record in three seasons.

As a result of these changes, the team had ten new position coaches heading into 2019, retaining only two coaches from the Wells regime.

Besides a change in the team’s coaching philosophy in 2019, several playmakers from the 2018 season left the program, either graduating or entering the 2019 NFL Draft. Most of Utah State’s offensive line in 2019 consisted of either back-ups or first-year talent. The left tackle, Alfred Edwards, was the only player on the offensive line from 2018 to return.

The Aggies also lost five wide receivers in the offseason, per a 247Sports 2019 Preseason Preview. Having to learn a new coach’s playbook, with new blockers and freshman receivers would have been difficult for any quarterback.

Even with all these changes, Love was still able to lead the team to a 7-5 regular-season record in 2019. In the final game of the regular season, Love demolished the New Mexico Lobos 38-25, throwing three touchdowns in the game.

In the 2020 NFL Draft, no other quarterback dealt with the level of turnover on their team that Love did. Jalen Hurts may have had to transfer to another school in 2019. But Hurts went from a program in Alabama that had great recruiting success to an Oklahoma team that also had great recruiting success.

Love never had the talented roster around him that quarterbacks like Hurts, Tagovailoa or Herbert had. Utah State has never been a recruiting powerhouse in the NCAA. The Aggies went into 2019 with the 90th ranked recruiting class, their best recruit being a three-star inside linebacker, according to 247 Sports.