Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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6 DECEMBER 2025 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED BY ERIC HANSEN F ifty-five years ago, former Notre Dame sports information director Roger Valdis- erri had the in-your-face gumption and strategy to actually ask his Heisman Trophy-con- tending quarterback to change the pronuncia- tion of his last name. So, Joe THEEZ-man became Joe THIGHZ-man to rhyme with Heisman. And it worked well enough to coax a runner-up finish by Joe The- ismann to the eventual 1970 winner, Stanford quarterback Jim Plunkett. In 2025? The world is so in-your-face — through social media, through YouTube, through inescapable memes and tropes — that almost the reverse tactics make for a successful Heisman campaign, which is why Jeremiyah Love — with subtle, nu- anced promotion until now — has surged into contention for college football's most coveted individual award. And it's working. Heading into Notre Dame's 70-7 mauling of Syracuse Nov. 22, the Irish junior running back, per one sportsbook, had 35-1 odds to win the Heisman. After that game — one in which he touched the ball just eight times — he was 3-1. But three of those touches were highlight-reel touchdowns. He amassed 171 yards. And on the following Tuesday, Notre Dame finally jumped into a higher gear, a more visible gear with the pro- motion — boxes of candy hearts being mailed out to Heisman Trophy voters, re- flecting on the Love theme that's been building subtly throughout the season. The actual Heisman vot- ing this year has been reduced to a small window, opening Saturday night, Dec. 6, as the conference championship games are finishing up, and closing late Monday afternoon on Dec. 8. At 8 p.m. EST on Dec. 8, the finalists, who will travel to New York by invitation only, will be announced. Notre Dame hasn't had someone in that group since linebacker Manti Te'o was the runner-up to Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel in 2012. The 2025 winner will be announced on Dec. 13, with the Heisman Trophy show starting at 8 p.m. that night. The planning for how to handle Love as a Heisman candidate actually started way back in June, when Katy Lonergan and Love sat down to talk about con- cepts of how to move forward after the media had persistently started bringing Heisman aspirations up in interviews in the spring. Lonergan is the advisor to head football coach Mar- cus Freeman and Notre Dame's associate athletics director/strategic and football communications. Not mentioned in that long title is acting as the point person for a large team working on Love's Heisman campaign. That campaign was largely in the shadows for most of the 2025 season — and by design. Lonergan had watched how Southern Cal handled sophomore quar- terback Caleb Williams in 2022, and was inspired. The school didn't ever refer to Williams as a Heisman can- didate until he faced Notre Dame in the final regular- season game of that season. Williams ended up dominating the voting, easily outdistancing TCU's Max Duggan and Ohio State's C.J. Stroud for the honor. "The way we look at it, they kind of let him earn it completely on the field before they started pushing him for the Heisman," Lonergan said. "And that's kind of become the nature of this — and the world, really. If people are hearing about you too much, they're going to start to try to find reasons to not be happy with your performance. So later was better, but that didn't mean 'do nothing' in the meantime. "What I told Jeremiyah what I thought was important is that we needed to know what it would look like, so that when the moment comes, we're ready for the moment. We're not then getting stuff put together. So, we needed to have our plan." Part of the plan was a media push late in the season and getting Love's personal stories out ahead of that. People become more invested in players with a backstory that moves them. And a trickier part of the plan was shoehorning this into Freeman's "Team Glory" concept. There had to be a balance of promoting Love for the Heisman with players who worked just as hard but didn't have as visible roles on the team. When framing his Heisman worthiness, Love's highlights speak louder than his numbers, but he has both. And Notre Dame has brought atten- tion to both. Love had a voice in how the promo- tions work, right down to the green jerseys and which pun-heavy Love songs get played at Notre Dame Stadium after his touchdowns. Notre Dame offensive coordinator Mike Den- brock was in the same role at LSU in 2023, when Tigers quarterback Jayden Daniels' campaign slowly built, then surged at the end to overtake Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. and Or- egon quarterback Bo Nix. He sees a lot of paral- lels between Daniels and Love, both how they han- dle their business on the field and how they handle the glare of the Heisman Trophy race. "And there's a reason why they've gotten to where they are," he said. "It's not necessarily a great play call that makes that happen. It's their God-given ability, and then the people around them helping them look good at the same time. So, I think it's a combination of those a lot more than it is necessarily just designing a scheme that features a certain player or another. "They're both very similar souls in that they're team-first guys. So, you guys talk to Jeremiyah every week. You get an opportunity to know that his focus — as much as I'm sure he would love an opportunity to be in the discussion and maybe win the award — his main focus is being not only the best player he can be, but the best teammate to the people around him. "And that's what makes both of those guys really unique individuals." ✦ UNDER THE DOME FASHIONABLY LATE Notre Dame's Heisman Trophy strategy evolves, and it's unfolding perfectly for Jeremiyah Love Love's Heisman Trophy odds have ascended as the season has progressed, sky-rocketing to 3-1 after his 171-yard, 3-touch- down performance versus Syracuse Nov. 22. PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME ATHLETICS