Notre Dame running back Jeremiyah Love is a legitimate Heisman hopeful and a preseason All-American. And yet, he received such a surprising lack of carries in the Fighting Irish’s season-opening loss to the Miami Hurricanes that even play-by-play man Sean McDonough called it out.
McDonough is one of the great play-by-play announcers of his generation and one of the things that helps him stand out is that he’s never afraid to tell it like it is, even at times when he might wish that he hadn’t been so brutally honest.
So when Love finally received a carry late in the third quarter with the Irish down 21-7, McDonough quipped that he was “out of the witness protection program.”
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Notre Dame would go on to lose 27-24 to Miami thanks to a field goal from the Hurricanes with just over a minute to go after their fourth quarter comeback ultimately fell just short. But who knows how close the game would have been had the Fighting Irish actually employed their best player a bit more consistently.
Jeremiyah Love only had 10 carries for 33 yards in the entire game. He also went almost half the game without getting a touch of the ball. His carry with just over three minutes left in the third quarter didn’t even count because of a holding penalty on the play. Officially, he didn’t touch the ball from 13:15 mark of the second quarter all the way to the 2:20 mark in the third quarter. In fact, Notre Dame quarterback CJ Carr ended up with more carries than the Heisman hopeful did.
Notre Dame plays Texas A&M in another high-profile clash in two weeks and then their schedule softens up greatly throughout the rest of the season. Hopefully they remember they have one of the best running backs in college football at their disposal in their next time out.
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