Syracuse Football: 4-star Willy Love focused on 2 schools, including ‘Cuse

Four-star athlete Willy Love from New Jersey, a top-500 national prospect in the 2024 class, is focused on two suitors, including Syracuse football, according to a media report.

The 6-foot-2, 200-pound Love, who suits up at multiple positions at his high school but is primarily being recruited at defensive back for the next level, is concentrating his recruitment these days on the Orange and Big Ten Conference member Maryland, per a recent piece from 247Sports national analyst Brian Dohn.

Dohn’s piece is a subscriber-exclusive article, so I won’t be sharing details. However, the headline for this story, which is publicly available, reads, “Safety Willy Love focused on Maryland, Syracuse.”

This is encouraging news as the ‘Cuse hopes to prevail in the recruiting process of Love, who has unofficially visited the Hill several times.

Syracuse football appears heavily in the mix for 2024 four-star athlete Willy Love.

Love just began his senior year at Eastside High School in Camden, N.J. As I’ve stated on numerous occasions, he is cousins with defensive back Duce Chestnut, who competed for two seasons with the Orange and now plays for Southeastern Conference team LSU.

Love, who holds around 20 scholarship offers, received an offer from Syracuse football in April of 2022. His other offers include from two-time defending national champion Georgia, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Boston College, Cincinnati, UConn, Maryland, Michigan State, Nebraska, Ole Miss, Oregon, Penn State, West Virginia, Texas A&M and Temple, among others.

In mid-June, Willy Love revealed a top seven of the ‘Cuse, Maryland, Rutgers, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Texas A&M and West Virginia.

In May, Dohn logged a prediction in the direction of fellow Big Ten Conference group Rutgers on the 247Sports Web site for Love, and there was definitely a duration where the Scarlet Knights held analyst buzz in his recruitment.

However, when I last checked, Dohn had removed that projection for Rutgers, which is logical, since Willy Love is focusing these days on Syracuse football and Maryland.

Previously, Love was eyeing a potential commitment announcement on July 6, but he nixed that, saying at that time his recruiting process remained open.

In early August, Rivals.com national analyst Adam Friedman wrote in an article that he thinks, ultimately, Willy Love will verbally commit to the Orange. When I penned this column, for what it’s worth, there was at least one other prediction in the direction of the ‘Cuse for Love on Rivals.com.

These days, most of the primary recruiting services have him as a three-star player. The industry-generated 247Sports Composite, though, rated Willy Love as four stars, No. 436 overall, No. 35 at athlete and No. 10 in New Jersey within the 2024 class.

To date, Syracuse football has 17 verbal commitments in its senior recruiting cycle. Both the 247Sports Composite and Rivals.com had the Orange’s 2024 class just inside the top 50 around the country at the time of this writing.

I’ll continue to monitor the recruitment of Willy Love, and I’m optimistic that he will officially visit Syracuse football at some point in the future.