SOUTH BEND — Nolan James Jr., sophomore running back for Notre Dame football, comes from a wrestling family.
He learned the sport growing up in northern New Jersey and even won a couple of youth state championships before football eventually claimed his heart.
“When I got to high school, I stopped,” James said recently. “I was alright. I didn’t have the love for it, though. You can’t wrestle if you don’t love it.”
Jayden James, his younger brother, must love the sport.
Now a Penn State freshman, Jayden James won back-to-back New Jersey state wrestling championships at 150 and 165 pounds, going 79-0 over his final two seasons.
Ranked the No. 3 recruit nationally in the 2026 signing class, he reports to Happy Valley with great fanfare and national championship potential.
“I wasn’t as good as my brother, nowhere near,” Nolan James Jr. said. “But we wrestled together. We were each other’s training partners growing up.”
Now packing 215 pounds of muscle on his 5-foot-10 frame, Notre Dame’s James reached the state football final in all four high school seasons. As a senior, he teamed with future Irish teammate Elijah Burress to help DePaul Catholic win it all.
James finished his prep career with nearly 6,000 all-purpose yards and 45 touchdowns.
And even though wrestling is in his distant past, there are still times when that part of his athletic training kicks in.
“It definitely helped me,” he said. “A lot of trainers and coaches often see that movement pattern, especially with flexibility and dexterity in the body. I have a lot of that.”
Notre Dame offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock has likened James’ running style to a hoverboard while also noting he is “tough as nails.”
While James has a scatback’s height, he maintains a wrestler’s elusiveness, especially in the pile.
“People may not know where it comes from,” James said. “I think wrestling was a big thing for that. It’s just always weird positions you’re contorting into. Growing up with that, I think it helped me on the back end.”
Nolan James Jr. and his family’s athletic background
Ja’Juan Seider, Notre Dame’s associate head coach and running backs coach, sees that wrestling background in James’ daily habits.
“It’s his work ethic that he’s been brought up with, from his dad and even his mom (Kara),” Seider said. “He comes from a family of athletes. A younger brother going to Penn State and part of that (wrestling) program, that tells you the type of athlete he is. They all have it. They have it.”
Nolan James Sr. played football at the University of New Haven. E.J. Barthel, an uncle, played running back at Rutgers and Massachusetts before going into coaching.
Since 2023, Barthel has coached running backs at Nebraska. His nephew, however, is firmly entrenched in a five-way battle for playing time in the Irish backfield.
“Our No. 1 rule in the running backs room, the first thing coach Seider says the first day of spring ball and camp, is to do your job,” James said. “That’s most important. No matter how talented you are, no matter how skilled you are, if you don’t know and do your job, you can’t even begin to be a dude.”
There is no higher distinction, it seems, for modern football players than being designated as a dude. Denbrock, for instance, recently praised junior running back Aneyas Williams for putting himself “in a position to be a dude.”
“The second part of that is being able to do a little bit of everything,” James said. “Coach Seider wants backs who aren’t just two-down backs or just a third-down back. Being able to do every aspect of the game, I think that’s what qualifies as being a dude in the running back room.”
As for how James determines when he’s doing to hop on his hoverboard or lower the boom on an unsuspecting safety, that’s a matter of feel.
“It comes with reps,” he said. “Just realizing what runs and what scenarios you’ve got to pick and choose where to use certain aspects of my game. Certain times it calls for a little bit more finesse and making people miss it.”
He shrugged and smiled.
“And sometimes,” James added, “you’ve just got to put your shoulder down, put your head down and run through a couple people.”
Mike Berardino covers Notre Dame football for the South Bend Tribune and NDInsider.com. Follow him on social media @MikeBerardino.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: How youth wrestling shaped Nolan James Jr.’s run style for Notre Dame
Reporting by Mike Berardino, South Bend Tribune / South Bend Tribune
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By Mike Berardino, South Bend Tribune | USA TODAY Network
