Notre Dame QB Riley Leonard Still Learning as Regular Season Looms

Riley Leonard is still learning.

He’s learning how to stay in the pocket and deliver the ball, even though escaping might seem easier.

He’s learning how to trust his playmakers and that sometimes it’s OK to rely on someone else to make the play.

He’s even learning how to read Cover 2 defense on EA Sports’ College Football 25 — and that might be a good thing. After all, you want your starting quarterback throwing touchdowns in real life, not on his Xbox.

That said, Leonard has taken the first step toward being successful at Notre Dame. His right ankle is fully healed, which means he’s a full-go on the field.

“It’s the best feeling in the world, like being able to be myself again,” Leonard said. “I know my right ankle is stronger than it was and has ever been in my life. It’s more mobile than the left now because I was working on it so much. It’s good to be able to trust my legs and really play my game.”

While Leonard is confident in his ability to run and extend plays, the coaching staff has been looking for more throughout fall camp.

Head coach Marcus Freeman and offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock want to see Leonard dissect a defense.

“He knows he can run and make plays,” Denbrock said last week. “How far can we get him, as he goes through his development here, to trust the people around him to do the same things that he can do himself? That process is something when I talk about us getting better and better as the year goes along. I think that’s going to be a piece of it.”

The most vital aspect of Leonard’s game this season won’t be what he can do with his legs; he needs to excel through the air as well.

With only three passing touchdowns in seven games last season, it raises fair questions: Does Leonard rely too much on himself?

Luckily for Irish fans, Denbrock has been in a similar situation before, with Jayden Daniels, the newly named starting quarterback of the Washington Commanders.

“I look at those guys so similarly in a lot of aspects,” Denbrock explained. “I’m not saying physical characteristics are exactly the same, but situationally, coming into a program and into this offensive system” 

While Daniels and Leonard aren’t twins at the position, Denbrock was right to draw the comparison. Once he was able to hone Daniels in, he became the best QB in the country, and it all started when Daniels began to trust his playmakers.

“That process that he was going through was me getting familiar with him, him gaining trust, and that camaraderie with his wide receivers,” Denbrock said. “That process hadn’t run its course yet, and even though there were receivers running open, he was more inclined to pull the ball down and run it than to let go of it. I see some of that same process going on with Riley at times.”

Leonard will need to learn the same trust that Daniels had in his playmakers.

“If you’re the competitor that should be the starting quarterback at the University of Notre Dame, then you’re going to do whatever you can to ensure our success,” Denbrock said. “If you believe in yourself more than you trust the people around you, that can be a little bit of a detriment at times.”

Denbrock has been here before and may have many of the answers that Leonard is searching for, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to give them all away.

“We’re trying to give him as many answers as we can while we’re going through this process,” Denbrock said. “But something that he’s going to have to learn in this system is how to figure it out for himself.

“You can’t be afraid to let the defense kick your butt while you’re learning how to adjust what you’re doing. You have to give them an opportunity to fail or succeed, stay out of the way, and then go back and fix it with the expectation that we’re not going down this road anymore. This is fixed.”

A positive sign for Irish fans is that Leonard is self-aware. He knows what he does well and what he has to improve.

While you’ll have to wait until Aug. 31 to see for yourself, Leonard seems to be doing well in Denbrock’s system.

“One area I’ve been working on in camp is settling my feet in the pocket, going through my full progressions, and really understanding defenses and coverage pre-snap,” Leonard said.

“Our defense gives me great looks every single day so I can go through my reads, protection calls, and everything, and really be a veteran-type quarterback in this offense. It’s been really easy to do with Denbrock’s system.”

Everyone in South Bend is still learning, Riley Leonard most of all.

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