Notre Dame Fighting Irish running back Jeremiyah Love has been named to the 2025 Maxwell Award Watch list.
Heading into a season where Love is expected to take home lots of trophies, including being one of the favorites to be a Heisman finalist, being named to this award watch list serves as the official start of that portion of the college football season.
Jeremiyah Love’s Maxwell nod adds fuel to Notre Dame Fighting Irish’s Heisman hopes
The prestigious annual college football honor goes to the nation's most outstanding player, usually also being shared by the Heisman winner. Jeremiyah Love is the lone representative of the Notre Dame football team on the Maxwell Award watch list.
4️⃣🫶
— Notre Dame Football (@NDFootball) July 28, 2025
A powerful force in the backfield ☘️
Jeremiyah Love has been named to the Maxwell Award Watch List #GoIrish☘️ pic.twitter.com/1gHftE9J1A
It's not a surprise that Love is on this list, considering he posted 6.9 yards per carry in 2024. Those numbers were good for ninth best among players with at least 100 rush attempts. Overall, he ran for 1,125 yards and 17 touchdowns while snagging 28 catches for 237 yards and two receiving scores. His numbers were tamed a bit by the Irish routinely going with a running back rotation that saw at least two backs routinely get carries, and sometimes extended to a third or fourth back.
He was also used sparingly towards the end of the year after he suffered an injury in Notre Dame's final regular-season game against USC. He was still able to impress anyone with a pulse in the playoffs with a 98-yard touchdown against Indiana in the first round and several tough or otherwise mind-boggling runs later in the CFP.
It's a safe bet that Jeremiyah Love immediately becomes one of the favorites to win the Maxwell Award for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Should he do so, he would join Leon Hart (1949), Johnny Lattner (1952 & 1953), Jim Lynch (1966), Ross Browner (1977), Brady Quinn (2006), and Manti Te'o (2012).