Jadarian Price Awaits ‘Special’ Irish Reunion as Seahawks Face Jeremiyah Love, Cardinals
RENTON, Wash. - During the heat of the NFL season, as Jadarian Price already has learned in the early stages of his rookie season with the Seattle Seahawks, there isn’t much free time away from grinding on the practice field along with other work duties.
But while Price acknowledged that he hasn’t had much of a chance to check in on how his former Notre Dame teammates have done so far beginning their journeys in the league and has spent most of the little extra time he has resting and watching movies, he and top-five pick Jeremiyah Love have had a Week 2 date with the Cardinals in Glendale circled since the schedule first came out in May. After spending three seasons in a backfield timeshare as the primary backup behind Love in South Bend, the two first round picks will collide as starters for their new teams for the first time in a key early season NFC West battle on Sunday.
“That will be special,” Price said on Monday as Seattle began preparation for its divisional opener. “We even talked about it, how we want to maybe swap jerseys or something if we can. Cause it'll be a very special moment. I know a lot of Notre Dame fans, and Notre Dame people will look forward to that moment, so we’ll definitely get a picture."
Though far from unprecedented, it’s still quite rare for two running backs from the same program to hear their names called in the first round of the same NFL Draft. Such a scenario last happened in 2008 when Arkansas stars Darren McFadden and Felix Jones were selected by the Raiders and Cowboys, respectively, while Cadillac Jones and Ronnie Brown both were picked in the first five selections of the 2005 NFL Draft coming out of Auburn by the Buccaneers and Dolphins.
Nearly 20 years after the last occurrence, Love landed with the Cardinals as the fourth overall pick in April, while the Seahawks closed out the first round by tabbing Price as the replacement for departed Super Bowl LX MVP Ken Walker III, who signed with the Chiefs in free agency. It marked just the fourth time in league history that two backs from the same college were selected in the first 32 picks, and interestingly enough, it was the first time that the two players were selected by teams in the same division, adding quite the fun historic wrinkle.
Before being drafted 28 picks apart, Love and Price formed college football’s most electric backfield tandem at Notre Dame. The former emerged as one of college football’s best players in his final two years with the Fighting Irish, rushing for nearly 2,500 yards with 35 touchdowns and a ridiculous 6.9 yards per attempt average while adding 55 catches and five touchdowns as a receiver, wrapping up his college career as a Heisman Finalist and All-American.
In the era of the transfer portal, with Love as a roadblock ahead of him, it would have been easy for Price to depart seeking a starting opportunity elsewhere. But the allure of graduating from a prestigious academic institution, competing for a national championship, and hanging tough with his coaches and teammates all played a role in happily staying put.
“It was really important,” Price said of finishing his degree at Notre Dame. “That’s just to show who I am as a person, but also so people back home and everyone close to me can see that if you commit to something, give it all you got. Don’t shy away from competition or challenges, and that’s pretty much what I showed. There was a challenge ahead of me and competition, and I still attacked it.”
Even though Price didn’t start a single game in college, he still amassed 1,420 rushing yards and 18 touchdowns on just 233 carries as Notre Dame’s prolific complementary back in 2024 and 2025, rapidly rising up draft boards in his own right. Through it all, he and Love built what he termed as a “friendly competition,” pushing each other every single day and aiming to bring out the best in one another with reps up for grabs throughout the practice week.
Occasionally, Price and Love would dip into casual bets against each other, seeing who would score the most touchdowns or if one player would match the other for times finding the end zone in the upcoming game as just one example. Such friendly competitions would spice things up on the practice field and in the meeting room.
But there was never an ounce of jealousy or animosity shared between the two NFL hopefuls, and as Price saw it, he was only truly going to get better when his backfield counterpart performed at his best and forced him to step up his own game.
“As soon as you accept the position you're in, you're not going to get any better. So I competed. We competed together,” Price explained. “We said, ‘Ok, going into this game, who's going to have more touchdowns?’ And sometimes we would try to match each other's touchdowns. It just worked out that way. But it was never, ‘I hope you don't do as good.’ It was never that way, because if he didn't do well and all of a sudden I took the starting job, then what good does that make me? I wanted to prove to myself that I’m just as good or better.”
While Love already had cemented himself as a top-five pick in the 2026 class, an impressive pro day workout and endearing meetings with teams in the pre-draft process vaulted Price into the consensus spot as the No. 2 back. Less than two hours after the Cardinals selected Love, the Seahawks jumped at the opportunity to select his dynamic sidekick to close out the opening round.
Since arriving in the Emerald City, in part due to Zach Charbonnet’s ongoing rehab from reconstructive knee surgery to repair a torn ACL, Price has been earmarked as Seattle’s starter, drawing praise from coaches and teammates from Day 1. The team kept him in bubble wrap for the entire preseason and when he was dealing with a sore leg midway through camp, they shut him down for over a week out of caution, ensuring he would be ready to roll as the lead back when the real games began.
Thrust into the starting role for the Seahawks’ September 9 opener against the Patriots, Price had defenders actively trying to tackle him for the first time since last November in his final game with the Fighting Irish. But he didn’t show any rust whatsoever, starting off the game with a 13-yard run on his first career carry, cutting back to a massive crease with outstanding blocking in front of him, including a successful cut block by fullback Brady Russell that cleared him untouched until the safety tackled him past the marker.
Lauding the stellar blocking in front of him from an offensive line that returned all five starters from last year’s Super Bowl squad, Price rushed for at least seven yards on three of his first four carries, ending the first half with six carries for 42 yards and 7.2 yards per carry. He also averaged four yards per carry after contact, slipping through a tackle and powering to extra yards on two of those totes.
“My first three carries, I didn't get touched until the safety. That tells a lot about the way our offensive line gets off the ball and the way they run to the ball when the ball is in the air or when it’s a run down the field. I respect our offensive line a lot,” Price said.
As for his long-time college backfield mate, Love wasted little time finding the end zone for the first time in a Cardinals uniform, kicking off the scoring with a five-yard scamper to put Arizona up 7-0 at the 8:49 mark in the first quarter. He wasn’t quite as efficient with his carries as Price was, limited to just 37 yards on 11 carries, but his early touchdown helped guide new coach Mike LaFleur to his first win at the helm in a 26-14 road victory at SoFi Stadium.
Set to be adversaries for the first time, Price and Love will be all business when they take the field at State Farm Stadium on Sunday, looking to lead their respective teams to a 2-0 start in the NFL’s toughest division. With the Seahawks set to go to Arizona with Drew Lock under center in place of an injured Sam Darnold and journeyman Jacoby Brissett running the show for the Cardinals, the run game - and likewise run defense - will be a critical factor for both teams and play a major hand in deciding who comes away with a victory.
Considering the stakes, even in a mid-September matchup, it would be a surprise if Price and Love don’t each see an uptick in touches after barely scratching the double digit carry mark in their respective debuts.
Regardless of how things play out on Sunday, Price will be eager to trade jerseys afterward with Love, and he will be cheering of his success from afar in future games, at least individually. But with them no longer wearing the same threads these days, trying to stick with the theme of friendly competition under vastly different circumstances, he hopes to be holding his former teammate’s jersey up for the camera after getting the upper hand in touchdowns scored and most importantly, with the Seahawks on top on the scoreboard.
