SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Jeremiyah Love sounded more like someone who should have been lying in bed rather than someone who just played a pivotal role in Notre Dame’s first College Football Playoff victory.
The leading running back for the seventh-seeded Irish came into Friday’s 27-17 win over 10th-seeded Indiana nursing a right knee injury that cut his regular season finale short at USC. He was also fighting an illness that included, his dad later described on social media, flu-like symptoms.
But as Indiana’s defense found out, it’s hard to take down Love. The dynamic star at the center of Notre Dame’s offense gave the Irish a spark with a 98-yard touchdown run less than five minutes into the game. It provided the first score of the night for either team, sent the home crowd in Notre Dame Stadium into a frenzy and gave the Irish (12-1) a lead it never surrendered.
“Being able to come into this game and do what I've got to do for this team, it was special,” Love said. “I want to do anything for my brothers, to help this team succeed.”
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Love took a handoff out of Notre Dame’s own end zone after safety Xavier Watts intercepted a Kurtis Rourke pass near the goal line. He found some daylight on the left side of Notre Dame’s offensive line with left tackle Anthonie Knapp winning at the point of attack and tight ends Eli Raridon and Cooper Flanagan kicking out defenders to create some more room. Indiana linebacker Aiden Fisher made a diving attempt to prevent Love from getting through the hole, but it barely fazed Love.
Once Love broke through the opening, he turned it into a footrace down the left sideline, and he doesn’t lose many of those. Though cornerback D’Angelo Ponds started to gain ground on Love as he neared Indiana’s end zone, Love was confident he was going to make it. Love, who wore a knee brace in practice this week but chose not to wear it in the game, said he was out of breath and gassed by the end of the run.
“I was looking up on the video board,” Love said. “He wasn't going to catch me. I slowed down. I slowed down. I knew I was going to score.”
Love’s touchdown was the first in the 12-team College Football Playoff era and will be hard to beat in terms of distance on this stage or many others. He broke the College Football Playoff record for longest run by besting Ezekiel Elliott’s 85-yard run in a CFP semifinal win over Alabama on Jan. 1, 2015. Love even joined Josh Adams to tie the Notre Dame program record for longest rush.
“We know he's not 100%,” said Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman. “We're just going to keep getting him healthy. But he showed on that play whatever percent he is, once he breaks through that third level, it's hard to catch Jeremiyah Love.”
Irish quarterback Riley Leonard came to the postgame interview room wearing a T-shirt with a Jeremiyah Love cartoon on it as if Love was a superhero. The way he lifted the Irish with such a seismic run was pretty darn heroic.
“Yeah, once he creases the gap, it's like, all right, head over to the sideline, he's gone,” Leonard said. “We've seen it time and time again, but once he gets to that secondary, there's no catching him.”
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Love, who had one carry for a one-yard loss prior to his touchdown run, found it tough to break loose for most of the game. Love finished with eight carries for 108 yards and two catches for 18 yards. Notre Dame leaned on fellow running back Jadarian Price (11 carries for 32 yards) and Leonard (11 carries for 30 yards and one touchdown) for a larger workload than Love.
Indiana’s run defense, which ended the regular season No. 1 in the FBS for allowing just 70.8 yards per game, proved to be pretty stingy outside of the long Love run. And yet the 35 carries for 193 yards accumulated by Notre Dame far eclipsed the previous season-high allowed by Notre Dame: 137 yards against Charlotte on Sept. 21. Notre Dame’s rushing total was so far outside the norm for Indiana that it raised IU’s average rushing yards allowed by nearly 10 yards to 80.2.
“He is the engine that kind of sparks this thing to go in a real positive direction,” said Notre Dame offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock. “Every week he seems to find a way to make an explosive play, hurdle somebody, run for 98 yards. What do you want? It's kind of dealer's choice, and I'm honored to have him around.”
Indiana learned the hard way just how quickly Love can deal a gut punch. On a night Love might not have been his best, he still made the opponent sick, too.
“I put in a simple kind of gapped-out call,” said Indiana defensive coordinator Bryant Haines. “I was thinking of being even more aggressive. I was talking to Aiden Fisher; you want to go attack them, maybe we can get two points here? No, let's put in a nice conservative call.
“You misfit it a little bit, and the thing rips you for 98 yards and six points. That's how small the margin for error is against elite teams.”
Notre Dame will get another chance to prove how elite it is when it meets second-seeded Georgia (11-2), the SEC Champions, in the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans for a CFP quarterfinal on Jan. 1 (8:45 p.m. EST on ESPN). There may still be doubters heading into the new year, but one thing is certain: Jeremiyah Love is elite.
“I mean, he's just a freak athlete,” Leonard said on a night he broke the Notre Dame single-season record for quarterback rushing touchdowns with 15. “Like I say, if we didn't have a rushing quarterback, how many more touchdowns would this guy have? And he'd be in conversations nationwide.
“Obviously, I think people are starting to see how special he is.”
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