Notre Dame’s starting running back Jeremiyah Love sustained a knee injury in a 23-10 win over Georgia in Thursday’s Sugar Bowl. Love, who also tweaked his knee at USC on Nov. 30 and dealt with an illness in the week leading to a first-round College Football Playoff win over Indiana, took just six carries for 19 yards against the Bulldogs.
Love’s latest setback doesn’t appear likely to sideline him against Penn State in the Orange Bowl on Thursday. Fighting Irish reserve tight end Cooper Flanagan was the only player head coach Marcus Freeman named in an injury update on Saturday. Flanagan will miss the remainder of the playoff. But it appears Love is set to play, at least to some degree.
“Other than that, everybody else was clean,” Freeman said. “It was a pretty clean game in terms of injuries.”
Love, who leads Notre Dame with 1,076 rushing yards and 18 total touchdowns, seemed confident after the win over Georgia that he’d be ready to play in the Orange Bowl.
“I asked Notre Dame RB Jeremiyah Love about his injured knee after the Sugar Bowl. He said he tweaked it like he did at USC,” On3’s Tyler Horka posted on X after the Sugar Bowl. “Love seemed to recover well after that but he has less time to do so now. Still, asked if he’ll be good for the Orange Bowl, he gave a confident nod. Yes.”
The road block for Love and the Fighting Irish, who have lost five starters to season-ending injuries this season, is a short week of preparation. The terror attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Day pushed the Sugar Bowl from Wednesday to Thursday, giving Notre Dame five days, instead of six, to prepare for the Nittany Lions.
But the short week of preparation does not appear to concern Freeman, who said that the Fighting Irish are “pretty healthy after this past game.”
“The greatest thing about this week is it’s just a normal game week. … So, we played game day Saturday, yesterday was game week Sunday, today’s game week Monday. And so we’ve done this type of schedule for 10 out of 12 games during the season, and so you don’t have those extra days.”
With Love banged up, it’s possible Notre Dame increases the workload of backup running backs Jadarian Price and Aneyas Williams. Riley Leonard, the team’s starting quarterback, led the Fighting Irish with 14 carries for 80 yards against the Bulldogs. Price was second behind Leonard with 10 carries for 37 yards.
