Why Notre Dame football RB Jeremiyah Love never considered a transfer
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NEW YORK —Notre Dame football star Jeremiyah Love is the only Heisman Trophy finalist among this year’s quartet who reached this stage without a transfer.
All three quarterbacks started their college careers elsewhere before heading to greener pastures or more certain playing time. Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza, who played two seasons at California, is on his third conference (Big Ten) after previous stints in the Pac-12 and the ACC.
Vanderbilt’s Diego Pavia played two seasons at New Mexico State, first as an independent and then as part of Conference USA before playing the back half of his career for the Commodores.
Even Ohio State’s Julian Sayin, a redshirt freshman, was briefly enrolled at Alabama in early 2024 before coaching legend Nick Saban’s sudden retirement caused the quarterback prodigy to head to the Big Ten power.
Despite having to wait his turn behind Audric Estime in 2023, Love said he was never tempted to enter the transfer portal.
“I feel like it’s very important to finish what you started,” he said Friday at a Heisman Trophy news conference. “I started at Notre Dame. I want to finish it at Notre Dame. No matter what coach leaves, no matter how the organization changes, I chose Notre Dame for a reason and I’m going to stick it out until the end.”
By the time his position coach, Deland McCullough, returned to the NFL with the Las Vegas Raiders in early February, Love already was entrenched as the leading rusher for the Irish and a potential Heisman Trophy candidate.
Love won the Doak Walker Award on Friday night, becoming the first Irish winner of the annual award for nation’s best running back. The award dates to 1990.
Even so, plenty of other programs would have featured him to a far greater extent this season, when Love again knew he would split series and share carries with fourth-year man Jadarian Price.
Money was never a driving force for Jeremiyah Love
Six of the last eight Heisman winners were former transfers, dating to Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield (formerly of Texas Tech) in 2017. The trend expanded with Oklahoma’s Kyler Murray (ex-Texas A&M), LSU’s Burrow (ex-Ohio State) and resumed with USC’s Caleb Williams (ex-Oklahoma) in 2022 following back-to-back Alabama-only winners (DeVonta Smith and Bryce Young).
Over the previous two years, LSU’s Jayden Daniels (ex-Arizona State) and Colorado’s Travis Hunter (ex-Jackson State) had multiprogram college careers, and Mendoza was the odds-on favorite to extend that pattern this year.
It should be noted Notre Dame’s past two quarterbacks, Wake Forest transfer Sam Hartman in 2023 and Duke transfer Riley Leonard in 2024, drew offseason Heisman buzz but weren’t the ones to end a finalist drought for the Irish that dated to 2012 and linebacker Manti Te’o.
That honor went to Love, a philosophy major who said remaining loyal “is the most important thing you can do as a person,” regardless of the situation.
“I kind of think of it as sticking to your word,” he said. “I feel like that word is bond. I gave my word to the fans of Notre Dame, the coaching staff of Notre Dame and the people of Notre Dame in general that I was all in. Throughout my whole college experience, I wanted to stick with them and finish it all with them. It’s very important to do that, just as a person: Stick to your word.”
In the wake of last year’s run to the College Football Playoff final, Love had five days to enter the portal and judge his worth. Even through back channels, he said, no opportunities were brought to his attention that may have been remotely tempting.
“I try not to make things about money,” he said. “At the end of the day, I love playing football. Whether I was getting paid or not, I would still be playing football.
“Money’s money. You can get that anywhere. It’s just amount. It can increase or it can decrease, you know? As long as I do what I have to do on the field, I could go to the NFL and make lots of money. There was no chance that I would leave Notre Dame.”
Mike Berardino covers Notre Dame football for the South Bend Tribune and NDInsider.com. Follow him on social media @MikeBerardino.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Notre Dame football RB Jeremiyah Love bucks Heisman transfer trend
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