Josh Anderson knew he was going to have a big day when he got asked to model Notre Dame's Shamrock Series uniforms for his teammates Thursday. The program tweeted him suiting up, and it tweeted the players' reaction to the unveiling.
Great having our model Josh Anderson in this morning to model the #ShamrockSeries Uniform #GoIrish pic.twitter.com/5VVjBJbAtA
— Ryan Grooms (@NDFBEquipment) August 13, 2015What would make our players react like this? Find out at 10AM! https://t.co/fZpxjSw24l
— Notre Dame Football (@NDFootball) August 13, 2015Or so we thought.
Yes, the Irish's jerseys for their Nov. 21 game against Boston College at Fenway Park are nice. But it turns out the roar of approval was for a much bigger moment: Anderson, a fifth-year senior running back, had been granted a scholarship.
Head coach Brian Kelly explained the moment after practice:
"[Anderson is] a senior for us that has done everything we've asked over the last five years. He's taken more hits than any one of our backs. He's a scout-team player. He's done everything. He's a great student. Well-respected by all of his teammates and we had an available scholarship and as a senior he deserved it so I brought him out to announce the Under Armour uniforms and I had him instead of the big mannequin, I had him dressed in the Under Armour uniform. He didn't know he was getting a scholarship. So the guys were pretty charged up. He had the Under Armour -- I said: You know, this is a great model. Matter of fact, he's such a great model -- I said, Josh, take your helmet off -- he models everything that I think is right about a Notre Dame football player. At that time I announced he was gonna get a scholarship, and the guys were excited. It was a good moment."
Pretty cool. Of course, the question now is who was a better "model" running back for the Irish: Anderson, or Cam McDaniel?