‘The best players will separate’: Where is the cut-off in crowded Notre Dame running back room?

Ja’Juan Seider isn’t worried about divvying up the reps in a crowded Notre Dame running back room yet. But he knows he’ll have tough decisions to make.

The Irish have six running backs total. Four have played and done well in significant snaps at the college level. One more has a year in the building and showed promise in garbage time reps as a freshman. It’s clear that at least five of Notre Dame’s running backs could play, if not start, on most teams in the Power Four.

A five-man rotation, though, is out of the question. Even four might be difficult.

“That’s impossible,” Seider said. “That’s not going to happen. I did one time with four, and that was hard. You can play with three, because you can do some things.”

For now, Seider would prefer his players not even worry about that. Their minds, he explained, should be on making their reps count. He would love it if they show they can help in the passing game, because that would be a way to put two of them on the field at the same time and open up more reps.

However, cracking the game plan on a weekly basis might be tough for the back end of the room.

“The best players will separate,” Seider said. “Or it could be even, right? But we kind of know we gotta dude that’s pretty different here. We got another guy that played a lot of reps. You also got to play to their strength. If your kid can’t do this, don’t make him do that.”

The dude that’s pretty different, obviously, is junior Jeremiyah Love. Senior Jadarian Price is the guy who’s played a lot of reps. Sophomore Aneyas Williams was the No. 3 running back last season, and he got significant run in the College Football Playoff as both a ball carrier and a pass catcher. Seider said in his introductory press conference that Williams has “elite ball skills,” and that he attacks blocking the right way.

With three established studs, Notre Dame’s running back rotation might be too stratified to introduce new players. But that won’t stop senior Gi’Bran Payne and sophomore Kedren Young from giving it their best shot — with the knowledge that there might be room for one of them in the weekly game plan, not both.

Payne, whose role on third downs Williams had to replace last season after he tore his ACL in the Blue-Gold Game, was the No. 2 running back out of fall camp in 2023. He was also the short-yardage ace, even with Audric Estimé‘s size and strength in the room.

“I think it’s just all about your will, your want-to and the refusal to be denied,” Payne said. “That’s how I go about playing. I try not to let the first guy tackle me. That helped me get that job.”

Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman described Payne as a tireless worker in his effort to return to full strength after his injury. And, for what it’s worth, former Irish running backs coach Deland McCullough was very high the strides he made in spring 2024 before he got hurt.

Payne had a relationship with Seider, who recruited him at Penn State, coming into spring practice. His reintroduction to Seider has been a good one.

“I told him I got a couple guys I call them the easy button,” Seider said. “He just does everything right. He’s gonna be in the right fit on pro protection. He’s gonna be on the right read keys. He’s gonna know where he supposed to fit in the pass game. You can tell he’s a vet. So as far as the injury, we don’t even talk about it. You couldn’t even tell he had an injury.”

As for Young, he’s a fan favorite due to his Estimé-like size and brutish running style, which none of Notre Dame’s other running backs can replicate. He redshirted as a freshman, but he looked the part of a future star behind Love, Price and Williams.

“Just watching tape from last year, and also learning from those guys,” Young said when asked how he could improve his game. “See what they do, see how they approach the game. Just learning from them, I can also get better, incorporate those tools they have into my game also.”

If Payne looks like he did a year ago and Young progresses as anticipated, it might be hard to keep both off the field. Seider’s job won’t be easy in the coming months, but that’s a good problem to have.

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