The running back position has become less and less valued in the NFL Draft in recent years. However, FOX Sports lead college football analyst Joel Klatt and NFL Draft analyst Todd McShay don’t want the value of the running back position to skew how good Notre Dame’s Jeremiyah Love is.
In the most recent episode of “The Joel Klatt Show,” McShay shared that Love is the first running back he’s ever had ranked No. 1 in his big board in his 26 years covering the draft. On top of that, teams in the NFL also have Love ranked as high or nearly as high on their draft big boards, according to McShay.
“I’ve never had a running back No. 1 overall, and this year, it’s going to be the exception,” McShay said. “We’ve seen Saquon Barkley, Leonard Fournette and Christian McCaffrey that one year. We’ve had Ashton Jeanty. Forget my rankings, talking to NFL teams, the lowest I’ve heard they have him is three on their board. So, he’s one of the best three, if not the best player in this draft.”
Klatt also has Love ranked pretty high on his big board, placing him as the second-best player in the 2026 NFL Draft in his recently revealed top 50 draft prospects ranking. Klatt previously said that he holds Love in high regard due to the number of things he does at an elite level, such as his ability to hit a home run when he runs between the tackles and on the outside.
But even in a draft class that’s perceived to be weaker than other ones in recent memory, there’s still some debate over whether Love should be one of the first few players drafted. Klatt, though, thinks that Love’s all-around talent should make him a top-five selection.
“When you’ve got a guy that is not just a running back, and to me, he reminds me of or could potentially become McCaffrey — maybe not McCaffrey, he’s probably like a top-six wide receiver in the league — but certainly a guy who can be a threat out of the backfield, like Jahmyr Gibbs and so on,” Klatt said. “Those are the guys where you think, OK, I’m not just paying him to be a running back. He’s really contributing. I think he could catch 40 passes in a season, and would be just fine. Then, maybe the economics [of drafting a running back with a top-five pick] work out in a selected approach up on the high.”
What makes Jeremiyah Love an elite working again prospect?
Love showcased high-end capability as each a runner and a receiver at Notre Dame this previous season. He rushed for 1,372 yards on 6.9 yards per carry and 18 touchdowns in 12 video games, rating within the high 10 within the nation in all of these stats. He additionally had 27 receptions for 280 yards and three touchdowns. That will’ve put Love on tempo for roughly 38 receptions, 400 receiving yards and 4 receiving touchdowns over the course of a 17-game season.
Klatt had Love going to the Tennessee Titans with the No. 4 general decide in his most recent mock draft, believing he’ll be a powerful match with second-year quarterback Cam Ward. McShay additionally thinks Love could be a powerful alternative for Tennessee, saying, “Would not you like to see that?” However he additionally wonders if he nonetheless would possibly fall come the day of the draft.
“What would you like from a working again as a way to worth him there? Clearly, the working expertise, nevertheless it’s the instincts, the flexibility to cease and begin, the contact steadiness, having a way of the cutback lanes and virtually like a sixth sense with the imaginative and prescient,” McShay stated. “However I feel it is why we’re all trying and saying perhaps he falls to seven and Washington as a result of he’s a working again and the economics of it.”
Nonetheless, McShay is a powerful believer that Love ought to be one of many first few gamers taken within the 2026 draft.
“Discover me the issues,” McShay stated. “You at all times fear about working backs and the sturdiness, sort of managing that load, and that will probably be for the NFL group that drafts him to sort of determine what’s finest for him. However I simply suppose he’s every part that you just search for.”
