Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1530074
6 DECEMBER 2024 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED BY TYLER HORKA R iley Leonard has a lot of fun on Saturdays. Notre Dame's senior quarterback guided the Fighting Irish to one of the nation's longest winning streaks, 10 games through Week 14, only turning the ball over three times in that span, accounting for many more touch- downs than giveaways. So many, in fact, he often ends up on the side- line while games are still going on — purple pinny over his blue-and-gold jersey, headset on instead of a helmet. "That's kind of when I can take it all in, take a deep breath, really enjoy the situation I'm in, the atmosphere we're in," Leonard said. "The [Sham- rock Series] game, being at Yankee Stadium, was really, really cool. To be able to just debrief a little bit for almost two full quarters there was pretty fun for me." The debriefing ses- sions still aren't as fun as putting points on the board. Leonard is a high-level football player, after all, not a coach. Not yet, anyway. He said he hopes to play the sport he loves for much longer. "I love staying in the game," he said. "Whenever they're not scoring a lot, we'll score, or I hand the ball off to [Jer- emiyah] Love and I know we're getting up by a bunch, and a little bit of me is like, 'Ah, don't score. I don't want to get out of the game.' "It's a balance beam, for sure. But at the end of the day, I got to remind my- self, 'Oh, my teammates are able to play because of this.'" The dichotomy between ultra-com- petitor and ultimate teammate is what Notre Dame coaches have come to love about their QB1 this year. The same guy who you can pen in for a touchdown rush, or at least a couple scores of some kind in any given game, is the person who also wants to see ju- nior Steve Angeli get his share of acco- lades. Or any of Notre Dame's reserves at any position. They're all his guys. "Whenever you're able to put on the pinny and cheer on your guys that have worked so hard right beside you, they put in the same amount of hours as me, they're working just as hard as me, to see them play and get rewarded is al- ways a good feeling," Leonard said. In Leonard, Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman sees a humanitar- ian before he sees a quarterback, even though Leonard has turned into quite the latter after not looking the part in the Fighting Irish's Week 2 loss to Northern Illinois. After that defeat, Freeman said Leon- ard did not want pity. He wanted to compete. To fight. To work. So he did, and he threw 16 touchdown passes and 3 interceptions to go along with 13 rush- ing touchdowns in his next 10 games. Couple those statistics with who Leonard is around the team day in and day out — Notre Dame offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock said he enjoys his conversations about life with Leonard just as much as the ones about ball — and you've got yourself a starting quarterback ev- ery program in American yearns for. "He is a special person," Freeman said. "He is an unbelievable human being. As a father, I would want somebody to describe my children the way I view Riley Leonard. He's a great person. As a football player, he's done nothing but continuously grow, improve and get better." "It's been fantastic," Denbrock added. "I love how our relationship has continued to evolve." It's often very difficult for a quar- terback to completely rewrite the nar- rative of his season in a positive man- ner. It's so much easier for things to go south, to fall into a hole too deep to dig out of. Leonard fell. Then he dug. And dug some more. He got himself out of the hole that must've felt 50 feet deep after going 20 of 32 for 163 yards with 0 touchdown passes and 2 interceptions in the 16-14 loss to NIU. He didn't even run well in that game, carrying 11 times for 16 yards and 1 score. Not great for a QB who had 101 carries for 642 yards and 13 scores during Notre Dame's 10-game winning streak. Ever since then, he's been a different guy — on the field. Off of it, he's been the exact same. And that's all Freeman could have ever asked for. "I learned the most about him after Week 2 when we were down," Freeman said. "Anybody can be up when you're having success, but he continued to work and now he understands he determines how good he can be. He continues to put the work in. He's playing at a high level and he hasn't changed as a person one bit. He's a great human being." ✦ UNDER THE DOME A SPECIAL PERSON Notre Dame quarterback Riley Leonard is even better off the field than he is on it Leonard received praise from head coach Marcus Freeman for how he handled the loss to Northern Illinois in Week 2. Since then, he has thrown 16 touchdown passes with only 3 inter- ceptions while also notching 13 rushing touchdowns during Notre Dame's 10-game win streak. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER