Philadelphia (Pa.) Northeast four-star defensive end/outside linebacker Ken Talley (pictured left) touts 20 offers as a rising junior, and the top class of 2022 recruit is receiving interest from several other schools not currently on his offer list, including the two teams who played for the national title last season.

“I’ve been getting mail from like Clemson and LSU,” Talley told The Clemson Insider recently.

The interest from Clemson means a lot to Talley (6-2, 220), who knows how hard an offer from the program is to come by and thus doesn’t know many prospects from his home city of Philly who have earned an offer from the Tigers in recent years.

“I don’t know anybody who’s gotten a Clemson offer since Isheem Young, and that was 2017,” he said. “That’s been a minute, so it would be crazy to pull that one off.”

If Talley did indeed draw an offer from the Tigers, they would instantly become one of his top schools.

“Man, they (would be) automatic top five,” he said. “It’s Clemson.”

Talley’s interest in Clemson is high and it starts with head coach Dabo Swinney. Talley said one of his former high school coaches at Northeast, current Penn State graduate assistant Deion Barnes, knows Swinney personally.

“I’ve heard so much about Dabo Swinney,” he said. “My coaches who played in college football and the NFL and stuff, they tell me he was really like the man. I didn’t really do any research yet on it, but they were like, ‘He was the man, like Dabo Swinney is different.’ And I mean, he looks like he’s different because he keeps going back to the national championship and he’s competing with Alabama. It’s crazy.”

Talley had been scheduled to visit Clemson in early April as part of a Southeastern college tour with a few of his teammates but wasn’t able to make the trip after the NCAA suspended all in-person recruiting due to coronavirus concerns. So, he hopes to have another opportunity to visit Clemson down the road.

“I’ll probably make it out there on my own,” he said. “I love the team atmosphere … I would love to go see a game.”

Georgia and Notre Dame are a couple of the other programs showing interest in Talley, whose offer sheet includes schools such as Penn State, Maryland, Florida, Texas A&M, Tennessee, Ole Miss, Baylor, West Virginia, Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh, Boston College, Syracuse and Arizona State.

As it stands now, there are three schools Talley feels are recruiting him the hardest.

“Tennessee and Penn State and I would say Michigan,” he said.

Right now, the plan for Talley is to drop a top 10 before the start of his upcoming junior season, trim his list to seven schools early next year and then make his commitment at or by the end of 2021.

Talley is ranked by 247Sports as the No. 120 overall prospect in the 2022 class regardless of position.

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