Heisman runner-up called the ‘future of track and field’ lost NFL millions and holds pediatrics dream
Bryce Love was once a Stanford superstar who had the world at his feet.
Rated a 4-star recruit and one of the top running back prospects in the class of 2015, he committed to the Cardinal over offers from the likes of Clemson, Florida, Georgia, and Virginia Tech.
On the West Coast, he backed up ‘one-of-one’ superstar Christian McCaffrey for two years, before a breakout season in 2017 set the tone for what was expected to be an exciting career to come.
Love racked up an incredible 2,118 yards across 13 games, and was second in the nation in both rushing yards and yards per game.
He reached the 1,000-yard mark in just the fifth game of the 2017 season, and had back-to-back games with over 250 on the ground, making him only the second Pac-12 Conference player to accomplish the feat, following Reggie Bush.
Love won the Doak Walker Award as the nation’s best running back for his efforts, and also scooped the Lombardi Award en-route to being named a unanimous first-team All-American.
He took second place in the 2017 Heisman Trophy voting, too.
Widely expected to follow in McCaffrey’s footsteps as a future first-round NFL Draft pick, Love made the surprising decision to return to Stanford for his senior season, and was on both All-American and preseason award watch lists.
But in the final game of his college career, disaster struck.
Injury wrecked Love’s promising career
On the last play of his last college drive, which came against the California Golden Bears on December 1, 2018, Love tore an ACL in his right knee.
He underwent surgery later in the month, but the damage was already done.
Love’s draft stock plummeted, and he missed the 2019 combine amid a lengthy recovery.
Entering his senior season, he was seen as the top running back available for the draft, but the late ACL injury he suffered, plus other ankle issues that dogged him throughout the season, left talent scouts unsure.
When the 2019 draft finally came around, Love was ultimately drafted by the Washington Redskins in the fourth round, going as the 112th overall pick.
Love’s NFL career fails to take off
Following his draft slide, the once-promising RB signed his rookie contract with Washington, but never once made it onto the field.
He was placed on the non-football injury list before the start of the 2019 season, and missed his entire rookie year.
While he was active for a few games in 2020, Love was later placed on injured reserve in October, and was eventually waived by the team in April 2021, having never played a game.
Before suffering his devastating ACL injury, which surely cost him millions in NFL salary, running was in Love’s blood.
College star was track and field phenom
Long before finishing runner-up in Heisman voting, the promising athlete grew up a track star.
In 2009, he was awarded USA Track & Field’s Youth Athlete of the Year.
All runners under the age of 19 are eligible for the award, and Love won as a 12-year-old.
That year, he set national-record times of 11.64 seconds in the 100m, 23.37 seconds in the 200m and 50.75 seconds in the 400m at a state meet in Raleigh, North Carolina.
He was the first in history from the 11-12 age group to set three national records in a year, and was dubbed the ‘future of track and field’ by a coach at NC State.
While Love went on to concentrate on football in college, his track abilities were on show every time he turned out for Stanford.
What does former college star Love do now?
Once he stepped away from the NFL, Love remained in the Washington area and has invested some of his capitol in technology.
“After I took some time off, I started thinking about different avenues, and was trying out different cohorts to see what I was passionate about,” he told the Stanford Daily in 2024.
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“I wanted to figure out ways that I could make a difference, so I started taking different classes, investing in startups and learning about different technologies.”
Love also revealed one of his long-term goals is to go to medical school and become a pediatrician, having majored in human biology at Stanford and earned Pac-12 academic honorable mentions in 2017 and 2018.
Of his post-football life, he added: “As long as I’m learning and growing and taking it day by day, I’m happy.”
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