Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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IRISH ECHOES JIM LEFEBVRE 50 NOV. 29, 2025 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED A s Jeremiyah Love cements his legacy as one of the greatest Notre Dame running backs in history, Fighting Irish fans continue to marvel at the many ways he is able to avoid defenders on his way to one incredible run after another. It's pretty much always been this way. Love was a consensus national top- five running back prospect as a prep star at Christian Brothers College High School in suburban St. Louis. There, he led the Cadets to back-to-back Mis- souri Class 6 (large school) state cham- pionships in 2021 and 2022. In those two seasons, he totaled 2,287 yards rushing on 235 attempts for a 9.73-yard average and 36 touchdowns. He added 473 yards receiving and another 5 scores. In the 2022 state championship game, Love rushed for 212 yards and 3 touch- downs on just 19 carries and caught 3 passes for 106 yards and 2 scores. His 25-yard scamper in overtime brought the Cadets the title, 35-28, over Lee's Summit North. Love's 5 touchdowns included an 80- yard run on the first play from scrimmage and an 89-yard receiving touchdown. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported: "Every single one of his scores came in a scintil- lating, head-turning manner." Recruiting reviews hailed Love as "a smooth and fluid athlete that shows excel- lent balance as a runner. He can effectively use his burst and speed to be an impact one-cut runner … and can jump cut and can also make defenders miss in space." The two championships added to an already glorious athletic legacy at Christian Brothers. The Cadets won five state football titles in a nine-year span. They have won 10 state soccer titles and 17 in hockey, including a 130-game win- ning streak from 2002-06. In recent decades, CBC has produced graduates who have played in the National Football League, National Basketball As- sociation, National Hockey League, Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer. The school's illustrious history be- gan with its founding by the Christian Brothers in 1850, and five years later the school was granted a college charter, becoming the Brothers' first U.S. insti- tution to operate at the collegiate level. It's been a fascinating story ever since. Around the turn of the century, the Collegians, as they were then known, de- veloped into a formidable force on the football field, and the soccer pitch. They were named 1901 national soccer champs. When St. Louis hosted the 1904 Olympic Games, soccer was added to the schedule; however, travel chal- lenges prevented European teams from competing and there was a lack of U.S. amateur players. So Christian Brothers players formed a U.S. team, losing to Canada, the only other participant. The CBC players were presented the silver medals as runner-up; the sec- ond-place finish remains the best result achieved by a U.S. men's soccer team at the Olympic Games. Several CBC play- ers were ultimately inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame. Soccer held sway to the point that the school's football team was disbanded in 1906 until its rebirth in 1912 under new head coach Luke Kelly, a Bostonian who had starred at tackle for Notre Dame and served as captain of the Irish for the 1911 season, alongside end Knute Rockne. The Collegians defeated the Indians of Haskell Institute, 9-6, on Thanks- giving Day, 1912, at Sportsman's Park to conclude an 8-1-0 season, creating significant optimism for 1913. Meanwhile, back at Notre Dame, Jesse Harper was hired away from Wabash Col- lege as head football coach and athletics director, and he got to work putting to- gether an ambitious 1913 football sched- ule. His top players, quarterback Gus Do- rais and end Rockne, got busy practicing the use of spiral passes and precise routes for receivers in anticipation of the season. After Notre Dame posted three rela- tively easy home game victories, No- vember 1913 was the month the team made its mark on the national football stage. It started with the historic trip to West Point, where on Nov. 1 Harper's men shocked Army, 35-13. Just six days later, they traveled to State College, Pa., and defeated Penn State, 14-7. After a weekend off, they started their season-closing two-game road trip to the West and the South. First would be a stop in St. Louis to meet former teammate Kelly and his Christian Brothers Collegians, then on to Austin, Texas for a Thanksgiv- ing battle with the Texas Longhorns. Kelly had his troops undefeated at 6-0-1, including an early season 7-7 tie with the Missouri School of Mines. Among the victories was a record-breaking 97-6 shellacking of Cape Girardeau Normal (to- day's Southeast Missouri State). The most unusual victory was in their Jeremiyah Love's High School Was Once A College — And Faced Notre Dame Current Irish star running back Jeremiyah Love led Christian Brothers College High School to two Missouri state championships in 2021 and 2022. PHOTO COURTESY CHRISTIAN BROTHERS COLLEGE HIGH SCHOOL Christian Brothers College and prep school was housed in this magnificent structure, lost in a 1916 fire. PHOTO COURTESY CHRISTIAN BROTHERS COLLEGE HIGH SCHOOL