Tyler Martin is the top-ranked prospect in the state of Massachusetts for the 2022 class and one of the highest regarded rising junior middle linebackers in the country.

The Clemson Insider recently spoke with the four-star from Acton, Mass. — who has Clemson at the top of his offer wish list — about his recruitment and interest in the Tigers.

Martin (6-3, 235) owns a double-digit offer list and has been communicating with plenty of programs but is looking forward to Sept. 1, the date college coaches can begin actively reaching out to prospects in their junior year of high school.

“It’s been pretty good as of right now,” he said of the process. “Obviously, it sort of stinks with the spring and the summer, not being able to make visits or go to any camps (due to the NCAA dead period). But I mean, it’s been good. I’ve been in touch with a bunch of schools. I was actually planning on camping at Clemson this summer, but that wasn’t able to come to fruition. But everything’s been going well, and I’m really hoping starting Sept. 1, I’m going to be able to talk to a couple more schools just with that starting the open period for the class of ‘22.”

Martin has a connection to Clemson in the form of Jack Maddox, a redshirt junior long snapper whom Martin grew up with.

“My hometown is Acton, Mass., and Jack Maddox, who’s a long snapper for the team, he is from my hometown,” Martin said. “I grew up around him. He sort of played all the sports I did. Our parents are really close friends as well, so I definitely get a lot of details from him about what goes into the team and different types of things like that.”

Clemson is an offer Martin covets, and he hopes to set up a visit with the Tigers as soon as possible after the NCAA lifts its ban on in-person recruiting and allows prospects to hit the road again to check out colleges.

“I’ve been a fan of the team for a while,” Martin said. “I’m pretty much only a fan of a lot of ACC and Big Ten schools. Those are the schools that I grew up watching, and Clemson has always been a school that not only I’ve loved to watch, but definitely a school that if ever I was lucky enough to get an offer, it would be one of the dream offers for me. It’s definitely a school that I’m extremely interested in, and a school that I definitely want to get out and see as soon as I possibly can.”

Michigan, Boston College, Virginia and Nebraska are some of the schools Martin has been in contact with most frequently among his current offers, while he has also been in touch with schools such as Penn State, Wisconsin and California.

Several schools are standing out to Martin at this point in the process, though the complexion of his recruitment could change if certain programs he is high on — including Clemson — decide to enter the mix with an offer.

“Right now, a lot of the schools that are higher up on my list are Michigan, University of Virginia, Boston College, Virginia Tech actually,” he said. “But there’s definitely a lot of schools that I’ve been in contact with that I don’t have an offer from that I definitely would put right up there, and obviously Clemson, if I ever had that offer, would definitely shoot up right to the top — if not number one, really close.”

Ideally, Martin would like to make his college decision next spring, but his commitment timeline is up in the air right now with all of the uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and recruiting.

“Honestly, I’m not really sure when a decision’s going to come for me,” he said. “The best-case scenario I think for me would probably be a commitment coming around the spring of ’21. So, next spring is sort of my goal for a commitment time. But obviously with all these unknowns, it could be sooner, it could be later.”

Martin, who attends Buckingham Browne & Nichols School, is ranked as the No. 1 prospect in Massachusetts by both ESPN and the 247Sports Composite, which considers him the No. 9 inside linebacker and No. 284 overall prospect in the 2022 class.

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