Before playing the 49ers, Jeremiyah Love felt humbled the way his NFL career had begun.
His first two games featured decent performances, but they did not resemble the type of success he had each week at Notre Dame. But on Sunday, despite a 36-30 road loss, the running back felt like he began to turn back the clock.
"Usually I'm the type of guy that likes to finesse and juke and do a lot of extra stuff," Love said. "The more carries I was getting, I was getting back to my old self and trying to finesse a little bit."
He finished with 21 carries for 90 yards along with five receptions for 19 yards and a touchdown.
Love said he approached the first half conservatively, hoping to just protect the ball against the 49ers' aggressive defense. As the game went along and his number was called more often, he "was trying to loosen up a little bit." His elusiveness started to show.
His 26 touches on Sunday were more than his touches in the first two games combined. That was the kind of usage he envisioned after the Cardinals took him No. 3 overall.
"I was getting in the groove in the second half," Love said. "Obviously, we couldn't run the ball that much because of the score, but whenever I was getting the ball more, I was getting a feel for the game."
Could such a performance be the norm going forward? That's still to be determined. Coach Mike LaFleur said it will always be a week-by-week decision dictated on the game plan.
The Cardinals signed Tyler Allgeier in the offseason, and on the depth chart, he remains listed as RB1. But the 49ers game, the growing reality is that Love is the guy in that room. Allgeier had five carries on 31 snaps.
"It was kind of more the hot hand too," LaFleur said. "You could feel that, and hopefully it's like that every week in terms of whoever we're giving the ball to because you know you're going to get positive plays. Like I said yesterday, it stunk that our longest rush was only eight yards, but they can't force that."
LaFleur said those explosive runs will organically happen as they look to clean up the run game.
The 93 rushing yards were a 23-yard bump from the week prior. Before Monday Night Football', the Cardinals were 24th with 279 total rush yards.
The offensive line knows it's on them to help the running backs do more.
"I'm proud of Jeremiyah," left tackle Paris Johnson Jr. said. "He's a young star. I love the way he plays. I love the way he talks after even a 3, or 4-yard gain. I love the energy he has. But again, I believe it's on us as a line to be able to allow him to multiply those numbers. I'm proud of what he was able to do on the field today, but I know there's a lot more in the tank. That's on us to give him the range to extend plays the way he does."
While Love was pleased with his snap increase, the higher usage provides more opportunities for teaching moments. Even though it wasn't a Heisman Trophy-type of performance, it was a glimpse at what Love could become.
"It just wasn't good enough," Love said. "We didn't win the game. I didn't do enough for my team because I left a lot of yards out there. Just from looking at the pictures on the sideline, if I hit some of those holes at full speed like I usually do, I'm probably gone for at least one of them.
"You may look at the statistics and say, 'Hey, 21 for 90, you did pretty good.' But in my head, I got to do better at it next week."
