Andersen: ‘Love Is Well Deserved Of Heisman Hype’
Jul 24, 2019, 5:43 PM
HENDERSON, Nev. – The Utah State Aggies released a Heisman trophy campaign for quarterback Jordan Love and head coach Gary Andersen feels that he deserves to have the hype around him.
“I think it’s special,” Andersen said at Mountain West Media Days. “It’s the opportunity of a great player and an opportunity for our school to put his name out there and do all we can to help Jordan get the recognition that he can.”
Love was named the preseason Mountain West Conference Player of the Year and is only the second Aggie to receive the preseason honor, the last was former Utah State QB Chuckie Keeton.
“We went through a similar thing with Chuckie (Keeton) as we went through time,” Andersen said. “I think it is well deserved and I think it’s a great opportunity to continually get people to know who Jordan is. Sometimes that’s a challenge. Quite frankly on the west coast, it’s a battle. So, we have to make sure we do all that we can to help kid do a great job and Jordan will play well.”
Utah State head coach Gary Andersen is excited to get to work with Jordan Love. https://t.co/4kU961CZ7h #MWFB pic.twitter.com/1biKXgwJx6
— KSL Sports (@kslsports) July 24, 2019
Excited To Get To Coach Him
When Matt Wells left the program to become the head coach at Texas Tech, he didn’t leave the cupboard empty for Andersen when he returned to coach the Aggies.
He is very excited to work with a talented quarterback in Jordan Love.
“He is a special quarterback,” Andersen stated. “What I can tell you about Jordan is that he is a tremendous leader, he is very tough on himself, he is very tough on his teammates, he is very driven to be great. He has really worked in the last six months to look and see what his deficiencies were and knows that he is not perfect.”
Andersen admires the leadership and the confidence that Love has in himself and the team.
“He knows what the future can bring for himself,” Andersen added. “He doesn’t shy away from that. He has been a tremendous communicator with me as far as talking about the future.”
NFL Prospect
It’s obvious that Love is on the short track to becoming an NFL quarterback. He can declare after this season or return for his senior campaign with the Aggies. Andersen and offensive coordinator Mike Sanford have been in constant conversations about that and how Love should handle the situation.
“There are so many stressers and so many distractions about what is possibly out there for him that he is handling very well.” Andersen said. “Like agents that shouldn’t be communicating with him and dealing with him at this point. He understands that the guys that are reaching out to him are bottom feeders. They don’t matter and they shouldn’t be communicating and he understands that.”
When the season is over, Love will have to decide about his future and that’s why Andersen, his staff and Love are already talking about it.
“He (Love) understands that their is a decision to be made in January,” Andersen said. “So, we don’t shy away from any of those things and to his credit, he wants to talk about them. I think that is really special.”
