Rakes Report #261: All our hopes had come to be and the people gathered around
Can Jeremiyah Love win the Heisman? š«¶ Plus Trojan cowardice, future schedules and modern run games.
~optional audiovisual accompaniment~
Good morning, folks. This will be a running game-focused edition but before we dive in just wanted to hit on a few scheduling/big picture notes.
āļø If you read Februaryās edition, Southern Cal soft-launching a craven end to a century-long rivalry shouldnāt come as a surprise. I donāt have much to add to the prior comments other than Iām proud of the Trojans who are pushing back ā Petros Papadakis, I like your style ā and think anyone blaming Notre Dame for the potential end of the jeweled shillelagh series is a straight-up idiot.
Appreciated Marcus Freemanās quote on this from a press availability last week: āItās a great rivalry for all of college football. If it was up to me, we would play them every single year for the rest of college football time. Itās pretty black-and-white for me. You want my opinion? I want to play them every single year. When? I donāt care. I donāt care when we play them. Start of the season, middle of the season, end of season ā I donāt care. I want to play USC every year, because I think itās great for college football.ā
(I hope the conversation around this series has also affirmed to every Notre Dame fan that any time you start to wonder if independence is worth it that you should steel your heart because it absolutely is, even if itās just to annoy so many other people. Join us in independence, my friends! Be free!)
āļø Iām mostly positive on the announced Clemson series that at the very least serves as a good spine for upcoming schedules if Southern Cal bails. Will the Tigers continue to be a name opponent? I think so, simply because the resources they have invested in the program and the fact most of the ACC doesnāt seem primed to catch them means a high likelihood theyāll consistently be a ranked opponent. Itās important to note that after their run of dominance (six straight playoff appearances where they never finished lower than 6th in F+, two titles), the Tigers have slipped in recent years, finishing 19th in F+ last season, 22rd in 2023 (very annoying loss) and 19th in both 2021 and 2022. Is this the new normal or an aberration before they ascend back near the top of the sport?
āļø Lots of potential changes to the upcoming playoff weāll address when theyāre official but itās good news for Notre Dame that the rest of the sport agreed to remove the rule that you need to win a conference championship to secure a bye after one (1) year of the 12-team format. Hopefully the next move is to make the quarterfinal games on campus because Iād like any great Notre Dame season to include a bacchanal like we had hosting the Hoosiers but I can stomach the sacrifice of a postseason starting at a neutral site if it meant we just got to watch 11 or 12 wins.
Additionally, there isnāt a playoff format Iāve seen proposed that would in any way hinder a quality Notre Dame team from making the field. (Seems like the SEC, ACC and Big 12 are set on five autobids + 11 at-larges, which works for me.) Could some machinations make scheduling trickier? Yes, but weāll cross that bridge when we get there.
āļø Pete Bevacqua has done fine work so far after replacing Jack Swarbrick but one thing Iād like to see him do is broach a deal with the Big 12. Itās in Notre Dameās best interests to help prop up the rest of the sport outside of the Big Ten/SEC and it seems like good business to set something up with a league that spans from Morgantown and Orlando to Salt Lake City and Tucson.
Whether itās some home-and-homes to add a little variety to the schedule or some neutral site Shamrock Series matchups (Baylor or TCU in Arlington? Colorado in Denver? Central Florida in Jacksonville? Anybody in Vegas?) it would be fun to get something formalized. What if the last Saturday in October turned into the Big 12-Notre Dame Halloween Challenge? I donāt think thereās a single team in that conference who would turn down a matchup with the Irish (programs do like money) and it would be fun to see some fresh names on future schedules even if they arenāt powerhouses.
I wanted to spend a little bit of time gaming out the potential of a Jeremiyah Love Heisman campaign. To set the baseline, he has a few things going in his favor. The first is that heās awesome at football and comes into the season with most viewing him as the best returning back in the country (including PFF). While last year shouldnāt technically count for a 2025 award, nearly everyone saw his 98-yard run against Indiana, the miracle touchdown against Penn State and the assortment of hurdles, all of which canāt hurt the case.
He also has the chance to make an early impact. All of college football will be watching the Sunday night of opening weekend when Notre Dame travels to Miami to play a ranked opponent. The Hurricanes will be in their first game with a new defensive coordinator and have a lot of new faces, which seems like a good potential combo for some backend confusion that leads to a long run or four.
The home opener against Texas A&M in Week Three will have plenty of eyes as well. That weekend is a very light slate ā good reason to be in South Bend, perhaps? ā with a ton of FCS opponents to go along with Georgia/Tennessee, Florida/LSU, Wisconsin/Alabama, the Backyard Brawl and of course Southern Calās trip to Purdue. Love breaking off a long one under the lights and being showered by a student section full of heart hands is a nice potential visual to help his campaign the rest of the way.
Hereās the main problem for Love: How likely is it for any running back to win? Ashton Jeanty finished a close second this past season, but it had been a fallow period for tailbacks since Derrick Henry-Christian McCaffrey were one-two in 2015. That pairing is linked in my mind because we watched the Iron Bowl at a bar in Palo Alto knowing it would have benefited Notre Dameās playoff chances if Auburn could pull off the upset. Behind Henryās 46 carries for 271 yards, that did not happen. Then it ended up not mattering despite the Irish defense containing McCaffrey.
Between Henry and Jeanty, there was only one occasion where a tailback was close.
2016: Lamar Jackson wins with Texasā DāOnta Foreman the high running back all the way down at eighth. Foreman finished behind a wide receiver (Oklahoma's Dede Westbrook) and a defensive back (Jabril Peppers, in one of the most fraudulent Heisman campaigns of all time).
2017: Stanfordās Bryce Love finishes second behind Baker Mayfield and in front of Lamar in third. A step in the right direction for the position with the fourth-through-sixth slots going to Saquon Barkley (Penn State), Rashaad Penny (San Diego State) and Jonathan Taylor (Wisconsin).
2018: The passing game is peaking with the top six finishers being quarterbacks, ranging from winner Kyler Murray to Central Florida's McKenzie Milton in sixth. Clemsonās Travis Etienne was seventh, receiving no first-place votes, and Taylor finished ninth.
2019: Joe Burrow runs away with it, with two more quarterbacks and a defensive end getting on the board before Taylor at five (his third top-ten finish for the Badgers).
2020: DeVonta Smith gets the wide receivers on the board with his win. Teammate Najee Harris is the top tailback in fifth, with their other teammate Mac Jones in third. Would have probably been annoying to play this team in a playoff game in the teeth of a pandemic.
2021: Bryce Young wins and it's another tough time for tailbacks, with sixth-place finisher Kenneth Walker III of Michigan State sitting behind two different defenders (Michigan's Aidan Hutchinson and Alabama's Will Anderson).
2022: Caleb Williams finishes first, with five more quarterbacks directly after him before Michigan's Blake Corum checks in at seventh.
2023: Jayden Daniels wins and again the top tailback can only manage seventh (Oklahoma State's Ollie Gordon), finishing behind five quarterbacks and Marvin Harrison, Jr.
2024: A fun race! Travis Hunter wins as a receiver/corner with Jeanty in second. Fifth-through-seventh is another running back (Cam Skattebo), an option quarterback (Bryson Daily) and a tight end (Tyler Warren).
If youāre keeping track at home, since Henryās win in 2015 only two running backs have finished in the top three (Jeanty and conveniently enough another Love). One potential takeaway is with some variety in last yearās race, we might be due for another quarterback derby. The preseason odds think thatās the case, with only a few non-QBs on the board, including Ohio Stateās Jeremiah Smith near the top and then Alabamaās Ryan Williams and Love much further down the list. (Not coincidentally: Smith, Williams and Love are all front and center on the deluxe NCAA Football 2026 video game cover.)
Love, along with Marcus Freeman and Mike Denbrock, will have to navigate a paradox if heās going to get the trophy. For a running back to win, their team will have to be really good. But if Notre Dame is really good then it seems unlikely there will be a heavy workload for Love in November as they prepare him for what will hopefully be another deep playoff run.
For comparison: Jeanty cracked 30 carries in four of his five November games and Love never had a game with more than 20 touches. Perhaps new coach JaāJuan Seider will have a different approach, but he balanced a pair of great backs last year and between them they only had two 20-carry games all season (one came for Kaytron Allen when Nick Singleton was out with injury). Maybe Love is explosive enough to make it happen without overuse? He had 267 yards and four touchdowns on only 23 carries against Virginia and Army, but he'd have to avoid duds like Florida State (nine carries, 19 yards). The November slate is weak enough that big numbers on low volume are in play, especially if heās more involved in the passing game (although we heard that last offseason as well so this will be a believe it when I see it situation).
Itās fun to go into a season with a player as undeniably awesome as Love. I donāt see how the circle of him getting the requisite carries on a team thatās in the playoff hunt is squared that this firms up into a legit late-season campaign but Iād recommend dropping 200 yards and three touchdowns at Hard Rock Stadium and weāll figure it out from there.
While weāre on the topic of running backs, I wanted to go over something thatās been kicking around in my head since draft season. I almost brought this up on the pod a couple times because I wanted someone to check my work but there was too much to discuss and time didnāt allow a deep dive on a random theory I was still trying to fine tune. Thankfully, our friend Jamie Uyeyama of Irish Sports Daily was kind enough to accept my request to hash it out over email. I thought it was an interesting discussion and hope you will as well.
CW: This yearās NFL Draft, Ashton Jeanty going in the top top ten and the potential for Jeremiyah Love to go high next April got me thinking about the importance of running backs in the modern game, where they had become at least a somewhat marginalized position.
During his time at Notre Dame, Al Golden discussed how step one always was to stop the pass and the rest of his philosophy flowed from there. New Bears head coach Ben Johnson spoke this offseason about how Expected Points Added (EPA) in the passing game is crucial for determining who wins in the NFL. It seems like at the two highest levels of the sport, defenses are sitting back in an attempt to take away the big play vertical passing game and make their opponent put together longer, mistake-free drives if they want to score.
Ohio State was loaded in its passing game, but had two Top 40 picks at running back when it blazed through the playoff. The national runner-up and the team they beat in the Orange Bowl both had loaded rooms, while Jeanty and Cam Skattebo powered their teams to conference titles and byes. In the NFL, Saquon Barkley was a monster part of Philadelphiaās run to the Super Bowl title. Advanced stats didnāt think that highly of the Eaglesā regular season offense, with Baltimore and Derrick Henry setting a historic mark there while the Lions earned the NFCās top seed with a heavy investment in their running back room.
This is all to get to my working theory: If defenses are going to be so focused on taking away the pass, is it more important to have an elite, cut-above tailback to help you at the margins? Most power conference starting running backs will get three or four yards against light boxes, but what if youāre consistently turning those opportunities into 15- or 20-yard runs. Having even a slightly better chance to rip off a home run is always nice to have but does that skill loom larger if big chunk passing plays are scarcer in general? Conventional wisdom might be running backs were more important before the game evolved and resources were better spent at quarterback and receiver but what if having outlier talent at that position is the best counter to modern defenses who are focusing on the pass?
JU: I think it's more about having an elite running game than a singular back. With three of the top-four teams in the CFP this year and the big thing that stands out about them was how both had two great backs and chose to play heavier with 12 personnel (two tight ends) far more frequently than an average FBS offense. Defenses used to be all about stopping the run first and were built that way in their front seven.
There isn't even a front seven for most teams these days. It's a front six. And linebackers are smaller and not used to playing against the inside run game that often.
Michigan in 2023* was another example of playing heavy when teams aren't used to defending that. They would play with extra tight ends, line up in unbalanced formations, and then run the ball 30 times in a row against Penn State. They'd go unbalanced against Washington in the national championship game and poor run fits ended up killing them.
Then there's the fact that RPOs force defenses to defend pass on every play. That means less defenders worried about stopping the run as a first priority. It also means fewer defenders reading run, and when they do recognize it, it can be too late. That's when creases can open up for players like Love and Jadarian Price who only need an extra step to make a five yard run into a 25 yard run.
There's always cycles in football and because of how far things have moved towards the Air Raid and 11 personnel, defenses had to react and at first it meant more 4-2-5 and 3-3-5. That fifth defensive back was usually a hybrid safety/linebacker. Then it started to become more of a straight safety with teams playing with three safeties. Then mismatches with those players in the slot were being exploited, so playing a more traditional nickel (an extra corner) had to become the answer.
Many teams managed rosters with more defensive backs and less linebackers. They focused more on stopping the pass in practice than stopping the run. When teams come out and play with more tight ends on offense, defenses have trouble stopping the run because they either stay small or try and match up with an extra linebacker. The problem is that a lot of teams don't have a good third linebacker or aren't used to playing the run with more bodies to deal with and more gaps to cover. The offense regained the advantage by running the ball.
Teams like Notre Dame who can play big on offense and will have to practice with big personnel on defense to match up against their own offense. That's an advantage in modern football, which sounds funny because it's really them being adaptable to the more old school approach.
CW: Love it -- that all makes a lot of sense and a great note on how Notre Dameās defense gets more reps against that type of offense than a lot of teams. Ruminated on this and realized another example of the importance of elite rushing attacks is that Ole Miss thought they could replace Quinshon Judkinsā production so they didnāt meet his NIL demands (allegedly) and watched him head to Columbus. Their run game as a whole ended up being only average, well behind a lot of playoff teams. Considering the Rebels only needed to win one more game and they would have been in the 12-team field I feel safe saying that Judkins could have been the difference in three one-score losses (including one in overtime).
If youāre building an elite run game for modern college football, what type of personnel are you looking for? Ideally it seems like you would want receivers who can block enough but are capable of getting loose to keep defenses honest. What about at tight end and along the line? Any specific traits or advanced stats youāre looking for from the running backs?
One final thing. While weāve mentioned a lot of teams with great rushing offenses, there are a few specific names we havenāt cited: Riley Leonard, Will Howard, Lamar Jackson, Jalen Hurts and ā against a few of the non-cupcakes on the schedule ā J.J. McCarthy*. (Drew Allar isnāt a burner, but heās far from a statue.) If youāre recruiting for a college team thatās well enough regarded to be picky, are you even considering a quarterback who isnāt at least some sort of threat on the ground? God bless the likes of Jack Coan and never forget but it was so great having Leonard's legs as an option when the offense was in the muck.
JU: If we're focusing strictly on the running game and receivers who can complement it, then I'm thinking about guys who can make plays after the catch in the RPO game. Someone like Deebo Samuel at South Carolina, who averaged 9.5 yards after the catch per reception on 62 catches in his final season. If teams aren't protecting the perimeter against a player like that, they are going to get burned.
It might sound simple to just say a group up front that has worked together for a long time, but that's generally the thing that makes for the best run blocking teams because there are so many combination blocks that are critical. For tight end, what the Irish had in 2020 with Brock Wright, Tommy Tremble, and Michael Mayer is about as good as it gets at the position. That or what Georgia had in 2021 and 2022 at the position. Wright was very good inline, Tremble could add so much in a variety of ways as a blocker, and Mayer was already pretty darn good as a freshman.
I always look at missed tackles forced, yards after contact per rush, and PFF's elusiveness rating for running backs. In other words, the things that Jeremiyah Love is exceptional at. To have that and have breakaway speed? That's special.
I would never consider a quarterback today who isn't a dual-threat. What more evidence do people need than who the best quarterbacks in the NFL are and who has won the Heisman trophy in college football? Even someone like CJ Stroud who didn't run a lot at Ohio State, it didn't mean he couldn't run. His running helped Ohio State win the second half against Notre Dame in 2022. It helped them push Georgia to the brink in the CFP that same season.
The quarterback doesn't have to be Jayden Daniels or Riley Leonard as a runner, but he has to add value with his legs.
Okay, thatās it - thanks for reading and thanks again to Jamie for giving up some of his time to indulge my ramblings. If you havenāt listened to the most recent podcast where we looked at some potentially interesting teams for the coming season, I highly recommend it. Big shoutout to Sonia Citron for her awesome start to the WNBA season, UConn privilege is going to make surmounting Paige Bueckers for Rookie of the Year difficult but if anyone can do it itās a perfect basketball player. Also Kat Westbeldās story is genuinely remarkable, winning the title with the Irish as a senior in 2018 and not just making her WNBA debut but contributing as a starter seven years later.
No idea when the next edition will be but weāre now technically only two months from Notre Dame playing football which is wild. Until next time, take care of yourselves and each other.
Love these reports, Chris! Thanks!