CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A brief smile took over Reggie Love's face as he dialed back the mental clock to 12 years ago and recalled “the encounter” with Cory Patterson. It’s a tongue-in-cheek term, an ode to the dramatics but very much a non-factor now in what has become a strong relationship that traveled from St. Louis to Champaign.
Love was in second grade when he tried out for football. He was more an indoor guy who would rather turn on a video game than play sports, but he gave it a shot. He tried out for a team in St. Louis, his hometown, and was sent home. Cut from the team before he ever even made any type team. The coach? Patterson, now Illinois’ running backs coach where he coaches Love, a redshirt freshman back who looks every bit like a Big Ten running back.
Thus, “the encounter was born.”
No hard feelings. Love trotted home. He’d never even played the sport anyway, he just wanted something to do to keep him active. But when he and his cousins played football in the backyard, they let him hear it. Constantly.
“My little cousins, they had made their football team,” Love told Illini Inquirer. “We would go in the backyard and play and they’d be like, ‘You’re trash. You don’t play football. You got cut.’”
Love had heard enough. He started getting into sports and made it his mission to make the football team, which he did in sixth grade. He was a wide receiver for exactly one year before moving to running back. Then he took off. He saw Patterson around but wasn’t upset at the decision to cut him four years prior.
Eventually, Love decided to play running back at Trinity Catholic where Patterson was the head coach before making the jump to the University of Illinois. Patterson was the lead recruiter on Love and eventually secured a commitment for the talented running back to come to Champaign. Love was ranked a top-500 player in the Class of 2020, according to the 247Sports Composite Rankings and the No. 8 prospect in the state of Missouri.
“He just showed me where I come from, I can make a better living for myself and using the football, the pigskin, as my path, leading my path,” Love said. “He just showed me the bigger picture than what I saw when I was a youngin as a freshman at Trinity.”
Patterson was the tight ends coach at the time, but the two saw each other around. Love was coming off injuries sustained in high school and rushed just 10 times for 12 yards in a pandemic-shortened freshman season. But after former head coach Lovie Smith was fired and replaced by Bret Bielema, who retained Patterson and made him running backs coach, the two are united again in the same position group.
“Reggie is a real good young guy,” Patterson said. “He’s going to work his tail off all the time. He works well in the room with guys like him and Chase [Brown and Hayden], they bounce stuff off each other all the time. It’s great just to be back around one of those young guys that I helped bring here.”
Love should be part of a running back rotation that will feature at least three backs in the mix on a team that has made no secrets about its desire to run the ball. Bielema and offensive coordinator Tony Petersen have both been at the helm of strong running games in their career and the Illini have the backs in the room to conceivably pull it off in Champaign.
Before this spring ball even began, Love knew he had to add some weight to handle the workload in the Big Ten, and he’s always been a pretty good-sized player, Patterson said. Love went to work with new strength and conditioning coach Tank Wright and added 14 pounds of what he calls good weight to get up to 204 pounds. He feels good. He hasn’t lost a step with his speed and still can do everything he did before, only a bigger version of it.
“I mean, his body,” Patterson said with a chuckle when asked the biggest difference in Love between last season and this spring, “his body has changed so much. He’s just a lot more explosive. He always had great feet but the guy moves around a lot better than he did before. Not only with his body but he’s definitely a lot more explosive.”
With running back Mike Epstein’s status in the air as he remains in Florida deciding his future, Love is getting a chance to impress the coaching staff and make his case for a spot in a running back rotation that includes Chase Brown and Eastern Carolina transfer Chase Hayden.
Though he only has 10 carries under his belt, his playing style fits in an offense that very much plans to run early and often.
“He can do a little bit of everything,” Patterson said. “The kid has really good vision, he’s got great feet. One of the things you have to be able to have is your feet have to be able to do what your eyes tell you. I think he does that real well. We’ve got to work on getting his pad level down a little bit. Other than that, Reggie fits right into this offense along with the rest of the guys. This group is going to be a really good group together.”
Patterson and Love have come a long way from their first encounter more than a decade ago. Love calls Patterson a “father figure” and gets to connect with him again in the running backs room inside the Henry Dale and Betty Smith Football Center in Champaign, as player-coach in the Big Ten.
There were never any hard feelings, but Love set a mission in the backyard with his cousins after not making the team. He had heard enough of their chatter and turned to football. He hasn’t looked back.
“I got tired of it in middle school and I started liking football and I started liking sports more,” Love said. “I was like, ‘OK, I’m going to make this team. ...I just made it a mission and I completed it.”
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April 07, 2021 at 07:44AM
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Breakout candidate: Illini RB Reggie Love bigger, ready for increased role - 247Sports
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