Could Stanford spoil Notre Dame RB Jeremiyah Love’s quest for the Heisman Trophy?
Going into this weekend’s battle for The Legends Trophy on The Farm between Stanford and Notre Dame, probably the biggest storyline is what’s on the line for Notre Dame junior running back Jeremiyah Love. Love has rushed for 1306 yards and 17 touchdowns on 185 carries for an average of 7.1 yards per carry. On top of that, he has 26 receptions for 274 yards and three touchdowns for an average of 10.5 yards per reception.
Entering this weekend’s game as of Tuesday, November 25th, BetMGM had Love as their number two favorite to win the Heisman Trophy behind Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza after his sensational performance against Syracuse, in which he rushed for 171 yards and three touchdowns in a 70-7 beatdown. With one more game to go before the Heisman voting ends, Love is going to need another strong performance against the Stanford Cardinal on Saturday night.
If Love is to have a strong performance, he’s going to have to do it against a Cardinal defense that gives up 113.1 rushing yards and 1.2 rushing touchdowns per game while also ranking 15th in the nation in red zone defense, allowing teams to score just 75.9% of the time that they enter the red zone and only find the end zone 46.3% of the time (22.2% rushing touchdowns).
In their 31-10 Big Game victory over Cal, Stanford held the Golden Bears to just 12 rushing yards, while also forcing three fumbles, two of which were returned for touchdowns. They’re coming off an excellent run defense performance. Only three players have rushed for 100+ yards against Stanford this season: Pittsburgh running back Ja’Kyrian Turner (127 yards on 22 carries), Miami running back Mark Fletcher Jr. (106 yards and three touchdowns on 23 carries), and BYU running back LJ Martin (110 yards on 18 carries). That’s it.
Now, to be fair, on paper Jeremiyah Love is the best running back Stanford will have faced all season and if three other running backs can rush for 100+ yards against the Cardinal, there’s no reason to doubt Love can as well. However, if he wants to win the Heisman Trophy, Love will likely need to go well beyond 100+ rushing yards. He’ll likely need a 150+ rushing yard performance at least and multiple touchdowns. Such a performance against Stanford’s defense would truly be Heisman worthy given what kind of defense the Cardinal have.
At the same time, given Stanford comes in at 4-7 overall, I’m not sure Heisman voters will look kindly on Love rushing for just 100 yards against Stanford given their record. And if that were to somehow include a Stanford victory, then it’s lights out for Love’s Heisman bid. It could even cost him a trip to New York.
The bottom line is given how good Stanford’s run defense is, Jeremiyah Love’s quest for a Heisman Trophy could easily end on The Farm. He’s going to need to put up numbers far greater against their defense than any other running back has done this season and given how well they did against Cal, the Stanford defense is going to be coming in with a lot of confidence.
It’ll be fascinating to see how Love performs and what kind of scheme Stanford co-defensive coordinators Bobby April III and Andy Thompson have in store for him along with their personnel. It should be a fun battle.
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