The 2026 NFL Scouting Combine opens with unusual clarity at running back. Notre Dame star Jeremiyah Love enters the week as the consensus top player at his position, and league evaluators are treating his performance as a bellwether for how high a back can climb in a modern draft. Behind him, a deep and stylistically varied group of invitees will try to convince teams that this class offers more than one headline name.
From projected top-10 mocks to fantasy football debates, the conversation keeps circling back to whether Love can justify talk of a premium pick and which runners are best positioned to join him on the first two days of the 2026 NFL Draft. The combine will not answer every question, but it should sharpen the tiers that are already forming around the position.
Jeremiyah Love’s rise to RB1 status
Jeremiyah Love arrives in Indianapolis as the rare running back who is treated like a franchise piece rather than a complementary part. Earlier rankings of 2026 backs already framed him as the clear No. 1 runner in the class, and recent big boards have only reinforced that view by placing him among the top overall prospects regardless of position in the 2026 NFL Draft. That consensus has turned the Notre Dame standout into the central storyline of the combine’s skill-position workouts, with front offices weighing how high a back with his profile can realistically go in the first round.
The case for Love starts with a build and athletic profile that matches the modern template. A detailed scouting guide lists him as a 6-foot back at 214 pounds, with that size paired to open-field speed and enough lower-body strength to handle a full workload for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, and it places his Big Board Rank at 6 among all prospects, not just runners. That same evaluation credits his background as a former receiver for his ability to detach from the formation and create mismatches, a trait that has helped him separate from other backs in this class. Love’s emergence has been tracked closely across draft databases, with multiple profiles of Jeremiyah Love describing a player whose versatility fits neatly into contemporary NFL offenses.
Why teams expect a full workout from the top back
In an era when many top prospects skip drills, Love has chosen a different route. Reports from INDIANAPOLIS describe how the Notre Dame running back has watched other high-profile players limit their participation at the Scouting Combine and decided he would take the opposite approach. Rather than protecting his status, Love has said he plans to run, jump and take part in positional work, with the goal of confirming on the field what evaluators already believe from his tape and college production.
That decision stands out in a year when fewer prospects are choosing to work out at the Scouting Combine at all. One report notes that Notre Dame back Jeremiyah Love is part of a small group that still views the event as an opportunity to compete in every phase, and that he prides himself on his blocking ability as much as his big-play runs. Another account explains that some of the top players in the 2026 NFL Draft, including Love, want to show what they can do in timed drills and that evaluators already see him as a likely Top 10 pick if he validates expectations. In that context, the decision by Jeremiyah Love to embrace the full program looks less like a risk and more like a calculated attempt to separate from a crowded field.
How high can a running back go in 2026?
The question surrounding Love is not whether he is the best back in this class but how early a team will be willing to invest in him. One recent mock draft has the Kansas City Chiefs selecting Jeremiyah Love at No. 9 overall, arguing that while the Kansas City roster could use another impact defender, the Chiefs also need to support Patrick Mahomes with a more dynamic run game and that pairing Mahomes with such a talented back could reshape that offense. Another projection piece on potential landing spots frames Love as a player who should go somewhere in the top 10 and describes him as the clear top runner in the 2026 NFL Draft, with his combine performance expected to influence whether he lands closer to the top five or the back half of that range.
Television segments and social clips have joined that conversation, with one promo asking directly whether Will Notre Dame RB Jeremiyah Love will be a top 5 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft as the 2026 NFL Combine gets underway on Thursday at 3pm ET on @nflnetwork. That kind of framing reflects how rare it has become for a back to be considered at that level and how much Love’s profile has cut through positional-value debates. Analysts who build full positional boards have also slotted him near the top of their overall lists, placing him alongside quarterbacks like Fernando Mendoza of Indiana, whose Height is listed at 6-5 and Weight at 225 on one big board, as the type of player who can change an offense. The combination of elite traits, three-down usage and scheme versatility makes it easier for teams to justify bucking recent trends if the right fit emerges.
The rest of the RB invite list and tiers behind Love
While Love commands most of the attention, the 2026 combine running back group is deeper than a single headliner. Official invite lists show RUNNING BACKS such as Kaytron Allen of Penn State and Max Bredeson of Michigan among the 21 players at the position, with others like Demond Claiborne of Wake Forest and Jonah Coleman of Washington rounding out a group that offers a mix of power, zone vision and receiving chops. A separate participant list from another scouting event confirms the same core names, again listing RUNNING BACKS Kaytron Allen, Penn State and Max Bredeson as part of the class, which gives teams a clear sense of the mid-round options available if they pass on Love at the top.
Outside of official documents, early rankings from draft analysts and fantasy-focused evaluators have already started to build tiers behind the Notre Dame star. One early 2026 NFL Draft RB Rankings piece grouped Jeremiyah Love, Nicholas Singleton and More as the initial headliners for the class, with Love at the top and Singleton positioned as the primary challenger if he hits his ceiling. A pre-combine fantasy discussion labeled its list as PRE COMBINE FINAL Rankings and placed Love in Tier 1, with Tier 2 occupied by names such as Jonah Coleman and Jadarian Price, another Notre Dame back, along with runners like Noah Whittington of Oregon. Those tiers align with a broader scouting consensus that Love is in his own category, while several other backs have a realistic shot to climb into the Day 2 conversation if they test well.
How national evaluators stack the position
The national draft community has largely aligned on the shape of this running back class. One detailed set of position rankings for the 2026 NFL Draft from analysts such as Kiper, Miller, Muench and Reid lists runners by projected role and scheme fit, with Love again occupying the top spot and players like Max Iheanachor of Arizona State slotted behind him. Another scouting table of 2026 NFL scouting combine rankings for Running backs breaks down each invitee by Name, School, HT, WT and Range, giving teams a quick snapshot of how the broader market values each player before the drills begin. In that table, Love is treated as a Round 1 candidate, while several others fall into ranges that stretch from Round 3 to undrafted free agent projections.
