USC adds highly-coveted JUCO OL Cooper Lovelace
USC picked up his second transfer addition of the week, its fourth since the end of spring practice and its 17th overall since Lincoln Riley was hired, as JUCO offensive lineman Cooper Lovelace announced his Trojans commitment Thursday evening.
Lovelace, who is originally from Prairie Village, Kan., comes to the Trojans from Butler Community College in Kansas and has three years of eligibility remaining -- and a very interesting story.
He did not play football until his senior year of high school, focusing on wrestling to that point. He then redshirted his first year at Butler CC, the program's 2020 fall season got cancelled by COVID (the team played a six-game spring season) and he got the free year of eligibility given to all college athletes due to the pandemic, and then Lovelace had a breakout 2021 season and saw his recruitment take off.
He ultimately chose USC over Florida, Oklahoma State and many others after being wowed on his Trojans official visit last weekend.
Lovelace is listed at 6-foot-5, 320 pounds, and gives the Trojans not only some much-needed depth along the offensive line but a potential impact player at guard or center who will come in and look to compete for a job this year.
USC came out of spring practice with a clear top six of OTs Bobby Haskins, Courtland Ford and Jonah Monheim, guards Andrew Vorhees and Justin Dedich and center Brett Neilon.
Sophomore Maximus Gibbs and redshirt freshman Mason Murphy look to be the next two most-ready linemen on the team, and neither has played in a college game at the position. So Lovelace addresses a pressing need.
But he also might be a potential future starter with Vorhees, Neilon, Haskins and potentially Dedich moving on after this season.
Lovelace joins USC's lengthy transfer additions list, following Ohio State safety Bryson Shaw, Arizona State linebacker Eric Gentry and Wyoming defensive end Solomon Byrd, who committed on Tuesday, along with the 13 transfers who arrived before the spring semester.
Lovelace calls himself "the most flexible big man you have ever seen" on his Twitter profile and shared some supporting evidence to his claim.
TrojanSports.com spoke to him for 35 minutes Thursday night and will have a full in-depth story later Friday.