Devyn Ford thriving at Notre Dame with a second wind and no second thoughts
SOUTH BEND, Ind. — In the more than six months that lapsed between Devyn Ford exiting the Penn State football roster on Oct. 1 of his senior season and a late-April plunge into the transfer portal, he seriously contemplated life without football.
And found a path and a purpose.
“I graduated with a [degree in] psychology,” the now regenerated Notre Dame running back said Tuesday afternoon after practice. “I was inspired all my life by role models and people who are older than me who come back to speak to the youth and give us life. And I thought that I could also be a role model in life in terms of like going back to my own city, hometown as a high school football coach maybe, or a guidance counselor … and give life to that.”
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But the former vaunted top 40 national prospect coming of high school in the 2019 recruiting cycle also finally found he never fell out of love with football. So why not defer the other dream?
Ford admits the response to his presence in the portal was tepid. And that rattled the 5-foot-11, 200-pound Stafford, Va., product’s confidence.
Until he received a phone call from Notre Dame running backs coach Deland McCullough in May, that is, that blew him away. And as a result, 17 days before Notre Dame summer school classes started, Ford committed to a school he knew very little about, even though the Irish had offered him a scholarship more than five years prior.
“It was more like kind of through the window, like, ‘Hey, stop by’” he characterized the brief courtship in the 2019 recruiting cycle, “and then they’re gone.”
And then he swiped left, and never had a second thought.
“Watching them in playoffs and stuff like that, yeah,” Ford said of his knowledge of Notre Dame football subsequently, “but in terms of knowing this facility [the Irish Athletics Center], knowing where the class is at, or the airport, hotels, anything — I just did not know until I got here.
“And it blew my mind, honestly. I didn’t know Notre Dame was like this. I didn’t know it was a great place to be, smiles everywhere, great people and just being around smart people as well, on and off the field. It’s definitely a different vibe.”
Didn’t know leading returning rusher Audric Estimé, either, or even know of him until he met the top-of-the-depth-chart junior to inquire about subleasing his apartment, which he did.
And now they’re inseparable — with each other, and with each of the other three high-pedigreed members of McCullough’s stacked running backs stable.
“Literally, I love them, and I just love the scheme that we have back there and the camaraderie we have in our room,” Ford said. “It’s all laughs. It’s all jokes. It’s all love. It’s never, ‘Hey, I’m better than you’ or ‘you can’t do this.’ No, it’s, ‘How can I help you get better?’”
It’s not out of the realm of possibilities that all five — Estimé, Ford, sophomores Jadarian Price and Gi’Bran Payne, and freshman Jeremiyah Love will all see action Aug. 26, when 13th-ranked Notre Dame opens its season against Navy at Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland.
Junior Logan Diggs’ post-spring practice transfer to LSU coaxed McCullough to start wading through names and game tapes to see if there was an addition worth pursuing in the portal.
He eventually turned on Ford’s tape and admittedly saw the player who started strong but quickly faded and finished his Penn State career with a modest 666 yards and six TDs in his four years there, with the most productive season being his freshman year (2019) — 294 yards on 52 carries (5.7 avg) and three TDs.
But more vividly, he saw the talent of a player worthy of being ranked as the nation’s best all-purpose back in that recruiting cycle, as Ford was, still very much in play with perhaps the right circumstances.
“I really liked what I saw on tape,” said McCullough, who was an assistant at USC when Ford’s star and recruitment started to rise in 2017, and he was coaching running backs with the Kansas City Chiefs when Ford signed with Penn State.
“When I spoke to him, I knew he’d be a fit because of how hungry he was, how much of a football junkie he is as far as wanting to know all the details,” McCullough continued. “One of the coaches [at Penn State] told me that if they were starting a staff, they would have him on there, because he was that smart as a football guy.
“I called him. I was in Shreveport, I talked to him for almost two hours, and it was like he was interviewing me. ‘How do you coach this? How do you coach that?’ So I told him, ‘I’m going to lay everything out for you. I’m going to say some things that probably haven’t been said to you as far as details and fundamentals and technique. ‘It ain’t just take the ball and be an instinct guy.’
“I went step-by-step how I teach inside zone, outside zone, and how I teach option, outside option. I didn’t know until I got done — I’m 10-15-20 minutes into it — and I heard this clapping in the background. He had me on speakerphone with his family. He said, ‘Man coach, I may come because you’re saying some things I’ve never heard. I think I can really thrive. Man, that’s some good stuff.’
“So he’s been a sponge. He’s been excited. He’s seeing these things. I told him, all that sounds great — and he’s been doing phenomenal — but now we’re going to find out. For real.”
Ford remains in the mix, for real, as a special teams stalwart, including competing to be the deep returnman on kickoffs with, among others, incumbent Chris Tyree, an old friend from their Virginia high school days.
Tyree, a senior slot receiver, signed with the Irish a cycle after Ford landed at Penn State and played running back his first three seasons at ND.
“I actually grew up watching that dude run around the field,” Ford said. “Anytime we had high school games near each other, I would always go watch Chris … and he was watching me be me. It’s funny how we all ended up back at the same place.”
And ready to see if the player Ford was supposed to turn out to be is still rattling around inside of him.
“I don’t know what the reason was honestly,” Ford said of why things didn’t work out at Penn State. “I think that’s a question for whoever else is over there. At the end of the day, I can only do what I can — and that’s to put my best foot forward every single day. I’m here at Notre Dame, and I’m ready to roll.”
And keep life after football waiting a little longer. Because Ford only played in four games in 2022 at Penn State, he tacked on a redshirt year and has up to two years of eligibility at ND.
“When he came here,” McCullough said, “and we get out there and he started running around, I’m thinking ‘Hey man, this guy has a whole lot in the tank.’
“Then once we started [training] camp, you can’t miss it. How he works, how fast he is, how explosive he is, how physical he is, his attention to detail. So I’m all over it. I’m excited about it.”
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