Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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86 PRESEASON 2025 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED F or those advocating for — or even wondering — if Jeremiyah Love would be spending Notre Dame football training camp in bubble wrap, the junior running back is having none of it. Since the July 31 onset, he not only re- fuses to go through the motions in basic drills that he probably could afford to skip, he attacks them as if he were the sixth and final option in perhaps the deepest run- ning back room in the country. And the 6-foot, 214-pound St. Louis product, on a trajectory to be the first Notre Dame running back to evolve into a first-round draft choice since Jerome Bettis Sr. in 1993, wants more. More touches in games than the stun- ning 10 carries per contest he averaged last season. More special teams duty than the 28 snaps he got in 2024, most of them on punt coverage. More impact in the passing game. And he's willing to put in the work to earn that. EXPANDING THE SKILL SET Whenever Love had a break to go home this offseason, he was working with trainer Kortland Webb on becom- ing as scary of a threat in the passing game that he already is when the ball is handed off to him. "Footwork, releases, routes — basically everything — the whole route tree," Love said recently after a training camp prac- tice session at the Irish Athletics Center. "And we worked on that, because I feel like a big emphasis going into this season is to get me out in space more. "They might split me out wide or motion me out wide — or whatever it may be — to allow me to get one-on- one with somebody. We just worked on receiver stuff. I told [Webb] what I thought the game plan would be, and we just worked on that." What the game plan doesn't include is intentionally tailoring Love's in-season agenda toward becoming Notre Dame's first Heisman Trophy winner since wide receiver/return specialist Tim Brown 38 years ago. Or, coaxing him to change the pronunciation of his last name to rhyme with Heisman, like Joe Theismann in 1970. "I think [Notre Dame head coach Marcus] Freeman has done a great job of having meetings with him and [of- fensive coordinator Mike] Denbrock and me," first-year Irish running backs coach Ja'Juan Seider offered. "We always tell him that with team success comes individual success," he added. "If we can have great success as a team and you play to the standard you can play, it'll take care of itself. We're going to go as far as his level takes us. "I know he said one thing to the me- dia about it, but we don't really talk about it. We just talk about how we can get better every day." THE NEXT STEP IN LOVE'S EVOLUTION Seider kicked off that agenda on the very day he was introduced to the me- dia back in February, having made the move from Penn State after seven sea- sons with the Nittany Lions. That day, he texted each of Notre Dame's running backs, asking them to come up with three to five of their own weaknesses. Love's list was topped by the desire to take a deeper dive into X's and O's, tak- ing advantage of Seider's background as a college quarterback (West Virginia and Florida A&M). "He wanted to know fronts and cov- erages, because he was playing some receiver and running back," Seider said. "Coverage also helps him in the run game. Now he feels more free and can understand where the gaps are. "That's my plan from the neck up. That's the biggest thing for J-Love. He just wants to understand more football." STEPPING INTO THE BRIGHT LIGHTS More. More. More. More distractions too. And side ven- tures, including a comic book in which he's the main character — Jeremonstar. "My dad [Jason Love] is very intel- lectual," Jeremiyah said. "He comes up with some of the craziest ideas, and that was just one of them. And he worked his butt off to bring it to fruition. And it's almost here. It comes out in September. "It's basically the story of my life in a fun way. I have superpowers." Speed is his main one, but being smart — with his body with all the more, more, more — is too. "It's just being in tune with your body, I would say," he said. "I'm very in tune with my body. If I'm feeling something, I'll pull up a little bit or be more cautious. Whenever I'm out on the field, I'm going full go. But, I'm making sure that I'm being more technical in my footwork, being more under myself. "Communication is the biggest thing. If I'm feeling something, I communicate that to them [the Notre Dame perfor- mance team], and they'll adjust what- ever they need to adjust to help me stay healthy." The one adjustment Love doesn't need to make — staying hungry. It's per- petual with him, even as the preseason accolades roll in. "I'm focused on me and what I need to do," he said. "And that's my biggest driver for me — just being the best ver- sion of myself, living up to my own ex- pectations. If that happens to end up with me winning the Heisman or winning the national championship, then that's great. "But that's not really my goal. … My goal is to be a better version of me." ✦ Love, who may become Notre Dame's first NFL Draft first-round running back pick since Jerome Bettis in 1993, is focused on being the best pos- sible version of himself. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER No Bubble Wrap In Camp For Jeremiyah Love Eric Hansen covers Notre Dame athletics for On3, with a focus on Irish football. He can be reached on X @ EHansenND THE DEEP READ ERIC HANSEN