Six weeks ago, if I had told you that a native Texan whose highly decorated high school career that ended in 2010 was now the toast of college football, you’d reply, “Of course. Johnny Football!”

Not anymore. Enter the Cam Era.

With the assistance of one serendipitously snapped picture by Chicago-based photographer Jonathan Daniel, Notre Dame junior running back Cam McDaniel has become the world’s most famous college football player –at least for this week.

Manziel played quarterback at Class 4A Kerrville Tivy High School in Kerrville, Texas. McDaniel played running back at Class 5A Coppell High School in Coppell, Texas.

Manziel won the Heisman Trophy last year. McDaniel began this year third on the depth chart at running back.

Manziel’s Texas A&M Aggies are 5-2. McDaniel’s Notre Dame Fighting Irish are 5-2.

Of course, comparing Manziel to McDaniel not only does a disservice to both, but it ignores yet another iconic Texas prep football player who should be mentioned….

Tim Riggins.

Dillon High Panthers.

“Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.”

Also a running back. Also wore No. 33. Also set the internet a flame with his insouciant dreaminess.

Tim Riggins, the bad boy everyone can’t help but love, the womanizing, beer-swilling mess of hair and chiseled mandible from Friday Night Lights who once, when quizzing the Panther JV about game-situation duties and finding their answers wanting, said: “Too late, play’s over. You waited too long to make a decision. Now we lost the  game because of you, now we’re not going to state, and now the whole town of  Dillon hates you and you’re never going to get laid. FACT.”

Tim Riggins. You want him on your team. When you’re running an illegal chop shop, Tim will take the fall for you. Sure, he may occasionally fall into bed with your girlfriend after you’ve been paralyzed from the neck down attempting to tackle a linebacker who intercepted your pass  (maybe if you hadn’t thrown the interception in the first place? Right?), but who holds grudges over such trifling transgressions.

Oh, and did you know that one of Tim’s teammates, Landry Clarke, moved one state west, changed his name to Todd, and took on an entirely new persona as a meth-cooking psychopath? I kid you not.

Anyway, back to Cam McDaniel, who unlike Riggins is no womanizer. In fact, he has a fiancée. Or so we were told in a Friday morning appearance on the Today Show, although the alleged to-be-betrothed never appeared on camera. I imagine two interns at Deadspin are running down the verity of this claim as you read this.

Before Notre Dame’s season opener versus Temple on August 31, McDaniel’s claim to viral fame involved a run-in with a gauntlet machine. It happened during fall camp in August. The Irish running backs coach, Tony Alford, was away attending his brother’s funeral and so head coach Brian Kelly oversaw the RB drills that session. Serendipitously, or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, Notre Dame also allowed ESPN’s cameras to film practice on that one day as well. Notre Dame practices are almost ALWAYS closed to media (the Scissor Lift Effect).

Back to Cam. Someone had set up the Gauntlet Machine, an apparatus with springs on hinges that only bend in direction, the wrong way. Kelly ordered McDaniel, who was first in line, to run through it with about a 10 yard head start. McDaniel pointed out that the apparatus needed to be turned 180 degrees, but Kelly pooh-poohed the suggestion and told him to go.

And this, for me, is where Cam McDaniel became a legend. Because, knowing that the Gauntlet would throw him backward with the force of three Stephon Tuitts, he ran full-bore into it, anyway. And that’s exactly what happened. But Cam McDaniel proved something to me in that moment: he’ll run through a wall for you. Or die trying.

At the time McDaniel remained an innocuous, faceless (!) Irish running back, a punchline for Deadspin/Bleacher Report/SB Nation/Lost Lettermen/Yardbarker/Dr. Saturday/The Big Lead and, yes, even this site.

A few weeks later, in the Irish opener versus Temple, McDaniel did not start –George Atkinson III did — but he finished with more carries (12) than any of the five Irish RBs who did get carries. McDaniel gained 65 yards, his long run an 18-yarder, while USC transfer gained a team-high 68 thanks in large part to a 45-yard scamper in the first quarter.

The Cam Era had yet to be born.

The following Saturday in Ann Arbor, before more people (115, 109) than had ever seen a football game in person, including Marshall Mathers, Cam had just one rush for four yards. The Irish trailed 14-0 early, and for the entire game, televised in prime time on ESPN, Kelly leaned far more on Tommy Rees’ arm than on any RB’s legs (Carlisle had a team-high 12 carries for 64 yards).

It was not until a week later, in a prime-time game on ABC at Purdue, that the country got its first taste of the helmet-(less) Cam. Late in the second quarter with the Irish trailing 10-0, the five-foot-ten, 205-pounbd back got four straight carries to take the ball from the Purdue 18 down to the Boilermaker 3 (the Irish would settle for a field goal). On the last of his four carries the bullish McDaniel, who seems to enjoy running between the tackles, had his helmet knocked off. This photo emerged, but America failed to notice (where were you then, Tamryn Hall?)

Midway through the fourth quarter, with the Irish clinging to a 31-24 lead after a Purdue touchdown, Carlisle fumbled on first down.

After the Irish held Purdue on downs, Kelly replaced Carlisle with our square-jawed argonaut. There was 7:22 remaining and the Irish held a 7-point lead on the road. Notre Dame would run eleven more plays. Ten of them would be rushing plays, and all of those would be handoffs to the sure-handed Cam. Purdue never saw the ball again. And it was then, when Kelly basically announced to whoever cared to listen that McDaniel was the player he trusted most, that the Cam Era arrived.

It wasn’t that Cam was spectacular. It was simply that he ran with purpose, with his shoulders squared, and that he was not about to fumble. Ten carries for 42 yards –three carries were for zero yardage–when every last person at Ross-Ade Stadium knew he was getting the handoff.

McDaniel finished with 16 carries for 56 yards and one TD. Pedestrian, sure. But Kelly, a coach who’d seen a running back and a quarterback fumble away sure TDs that went for TDs in the other direction two years ago (Jonas Gray versus USF and Dayne Crist versus USC), is more concerned with his running backs holding onto the football.

Anyway, two weeks later, versus Arizona State in Arlington, Tex, not too far from the Dallas suburb where he grew up, McDaniel was involved in another head-banger. At the end of a 29-yard run he knocked helmet with a Sun Devil defensive back and had to leave the game (see what happens when the helmet stays on?). He did return.

And then, after a bye week, last Saturday night’s game versus Southern California.

The play that launched McDaniel’s Hollister-worthy modeling career the one that he and his teammates have dubbed “Blue Steel” (Zoolander reference), occurred in the second quarter. The Irish took over on their own 22 after a missed USC field goal attempt with 12:12 remaining and McDaniel carried on consecutive plays, for 2 and 6 yards. One of those carries ended with McDaniel losing his helmet, but continuing on. My guess is that it was the latter, in which a false start penalty on Notre Dame tackle Ronnie Stanley nullified the play.

The drive stalled there.

Cam sat out the next series.

Then, on the following series, he returned.

With the Irish trailing 10-7 late in the first half, Cam had runs of 24 and 36 yards –his longest career rushes –that helped the Irish to its go-ahead touchdown, a reception by T.J. Jones. Who knew at the time that it would be the game’s final score?

McDaniel finished with a team-high 92 yards (we’re knee-deep in the hoopla for a young man who has yet to record a 100-yard rushing effort, by the way) on 18 carries, but it wasn’t until Jonathan Daniel’s photo emerged two days later that his life changed.

 

 

On Monday afternoon a follower on Twitter, Nick Chapa, sent me a link to the photo and used the term “ridiculously photogenic” to describe the shot. Of course, it’s not simply that McDaniel has Abercrombie & Fitch catalog looks. It’s that, in the midst of this maelstrom of malfeasance, in a tempest of men much larger than he who bid him ill will, that his visage is so placid. That preternatural calm. That is what makes the photo so iconic, so unforgettable.

I posted an item on Tuesday morning noting that Notre Dame is “Unranked, But Extremely Handsome”. I still think that if such a photo of six-foot-seven tight end Troy Niklas ever finds its way to Deadspin that the internet will burst.

Anyway, you’ve seen all the madness that has happened since, culminating in Friday’s Today Show interview. I can picture Tamryn, Savannah Guthrie and Natalie Morales all sharing a smoke after it concluded. Seriously, cougars, that was funny.

Worth noting: Notre Dame was on fall break last week, so while the nation swooned over McDaniel, he was pretty much alone on campus with the other fall and winter sports jocks who could not escape home for a week’s respite of home cooking and laundry. It’ll be interesting to see how his classmates treat his newly found celebrity when they return this weekend.

The Irish visit Air Force Academy later this afternoon and will play their least visible, from a television standpoint, game of the year, on CBS Sports Network. So maybe life will return to normal. For Cam. For college football. For America.