Following historic NFL departures, a new wave of Irish ball carriers must bridge the talent gap by forging a unique identity rather than chasing impossible ghosts.
How do you replace Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price? Simply put, you don't with just one player or two. Thankfully, no team in the country is tasked with replacing a Love-like or Price-like talent in their backfield. Both former Fighting Irish stars were taken in the first round of this past year's NFL Draft marking the first time in history a duo from the same school were taken as the first two running backs off the board.
Their career long production speaks for itself, and as high as I am on the talent between Aneyas Williams, Kedren Young, Nolan James Jr., Jonaz Walton and Javian Osborne, it's unfair to ask them to be what Love and Price were. It's a tall order to replace a Doak Walker Award winner and one of the most underrated backs in the entire country, but Notre Dame is not the first team to have to replace a first round talent at running back. Several schools in the last decade have had to replace premier backs lost in the first round.
After Saquon Barkley's spectacular 2017 season at Penn State where he rushed for 1,271 yards, 18 touchdowns, caught 54 passes for 632 yards and had three receiving touchdowns, he went No. 2 overall in the NFL Draft. This meant Miles Sanders had to step up in 2018, and that's exactly what he did. In 2018, Sanders rushed for 1,274 yards, nine rushing touchdowns and caught 24 passes for 139 yards. His one season as the premier back in Happy Valley led him to be the No. 53 overall pick in the following NFL Draft.
In Christian McCaffrey's final two years at Stanford, he rushed for 3,622 yards, 21 rushing touchdowns, caught 82 passes for 955 yards and added eight scores through the air. He also had 1,614 special teams yards and two returns for touchdowns, one punt return and one kickoff return. The following season in 2017, Bryce Love stepped in as the No. 1 running back for the Cardinal and rushed for 2,118 yards, averaged 8.1 yards per carry and had 19 rushing touchdowns.
After Derrick Henry's Heisman season in 2015 where he rushed for 2,219 yards and had 28 rushing touchdowns, the Crimson Tide backfield returned in 2016 and didn't skip a beat and they did it by committee. Damien Harris rushed for 1,040 yards and two touchdowns, Bo Scarbrough rushed for 812 yards and 11 touchdowns and Josh Jacobs rushed for 564 yards and four touchdowns.
The point in all of this is that the backfield in South Bend doesn't have to try and be Love and Price. There's several examples of the high levels of production in running back rooms the following year after losing significant star power. Barkley, McCaffrey and Henry are three of the best collegiate running backs of my lifetime and they were followed up by really, really good players who produced at a high level.
I'm not saying that some combination of Williams, Young, James Jr., Walton and Osborne will be the second comings of Sanders from Penn State, Love from Stanford or the host of NFL talent from Alabama's 2016 running back room. But they have the potential to produce like them. Losing Love and Price is a blow, and I would have loved to have seen them back in South Bend in 2026 to make another run for a title. However, they left the running back room in great hands, and it'll be another productive year for Notre Dame's backfield.
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