Heading into the season, Notre Dame was said to have one of the best running back rooms in the country, led by the nation's best returning running back Jeremiyah Love. The past two weeks, this has been on full display as he, along with redshirt junior Jadarian Price, have wrecked havoc on opposing defenses. In their last two matchups, Love and Price have combined for 446 total yards and have accounted for 10 total touchdowns.
Against Purdue, this dynamic duo combined for 231 rushing yards and six total touchdowns including a 100-yard kick return for a touchdown by Price. In some programs, finding a balance between two elite running backs may be difficult, but Love is confident in their ability to continue sharing the workload, and it starts with their relationship on and off the field.
"On the field, if I see a specific look in a game, and I don’t hit the hole where I'm supposed to, or I don't make this guy miss, JD comes in and I relay that information to him of a specific look,” Love explained. “He takes that knowledge and he does what I didn't do the last play. That’s how we try to get better on the field. Off the field, it’s about making sure we're doing the right things like making sure we're going to class and making sure, if we're going out, we have each other's backs. That's just the team in general."
As we know, success in the run game is a team effort from the running backs hitting the correct hole to the offensive line playing assignment correct football. One underrated aspect to a successful run game, however, is the blocking on the perimeter by the wide receivers. This is something Love won't let go unnoticed.
"They take a lot of pride in blocking and just being a factor without the ball,” Love said about the Irish receiving corps. “They practice it every day or at least do some type of blocking stuff every single day in individual drills. They make sure that they're using their skills so that they don't lose them. They really play a big factor in the run game. We obviously saw that last Saturday from my run and a couple of JD’s runs. They're out there, doing what they've got to do, with the ball or without the ball. They take a lot of pride in blocking.”
So far this season, offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock has found different ways to get Love the football, one of them being in the wildcat formation used in the Texas A&M game. This is something we hadn't seen in the Notre Dame offense in 2024, but this season, they're finding new and creative ways to get Love the football.
"You've just got to do it more,” Love stated. “That was the first time we did the wildcat. As far as myself, I have to trust my guys, trust the scheme and hit the hole where I'm supposed to. If I see something else, do it at full speed and make a decision full speed. You've just got to keep practicing it and keep doing it. It can evolve it into more than just running the ball, like some misdirection or whatever it may be. That’s the coaches problem to think about."
Love will have his work cut out for him as the season wears on, but he has all the confidence in the world in this offense's ability to keep them in and win football games. This offense currently averages 40.0 points per game, 161.0 rushing yards per game and 265.0 passing yards per game. They showed, against Purdue, their ability to be a balanced attack and will have to put that on full display as they gear up to play Arkansas down in Fayetteville for the first time in program history.
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