Mike Denbrock Focused on Helping Notre Dame QB Riley Leonard Find Comfort, Confidence

Notre Dame offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock entered Tuesday’s press conference knowing that the topic of discussion would be his quarterback. 

Senior Riley Leonard has completed 61.3 percent of his passes this season but has yet to throw a touchdown pass while throwing two ugly interceptions, which came up big during Saturday’s loss to Northern Illinois. 

The second pick was late in the fourth quarter and Denbrock decided to take a shot play to try and end the game. It’s a call you see from several coordinators across the country and considering there were two open options, it’s hard to say it was the play call. 

Yet Leonard didn’t throw it to the open receivers, which cost the Irish the game. 

“You've seen it,” stated Denbrock. “You know the answer to those questions already. He just has to make a better decision on 2nd-and-1 and I've got to do a good job of assessing whether we can really put him in those situations until he's ready to handle them.

“We could have run the football again and got a first down and continued the drive. I've got to analyze all that stuff and make sure I'm making good decisions where he's concerned and not putting him in jeopardy if it could lead to a bad decision. There were opportunities there to make a big play, and we didn't get it done, and that's on me. And, unfortunately, we've got to do a bit better job there.” 

Denbrock might have foreshadowed some of the issues Leonard and Notre Dame’s offense would experience on an expedite learning curve with a transfer quarterback. It comes down to trusting players to make plays and making quick decisions, which Leonard didn’t do on Saturday afternoon. 

“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 said on August 17th. “So working through that where that trust gets built, and I think the guys have done a great job of it, it's getting better all the time. 

"He knows he can run and make plays. How far can we get him as he goes through his development here to now trust the people around him to do the same things that he knows he can do himself? That process, 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." 

As of Tuesday night, Denbrock still had conviction in the play call and it comes down to execution. 

“That's kind of a shot down [the field] when you have an opportunity to maybe put the dagger in somebody and finish it,” Denbrock explained. “We've got to make sure that the communication between him and I — and between him and I and Gino [Guidugli]— is spot-on specific, and he understands in those scenarios that there's nothing wrong with throwing the ball out of bounds or taking the dropdown or the check down or whatever if you don't love it. If you love it, let it fly. If you don't love it, there's a lot of other options and a lot of other things we could be doing.” 

The other elephant in the room is Leonard may (or may not) being dealing with an injury to his non-throwing shoulder. Denbrock was conservative with calling running plays for his quarterback in the second half, but injury was not one of them. 

“We had too many three-and-outs and didn't have the ball as much as we needed to,” said Denbrock. “Based on how we executed and what we did, we were our own worst enemy. There was an opportunity that I thought the running backs were hot. I wanted to try to get the ball in their hands a little bit more and that kind of led to some of the decisions that we made.” 

Despite the reports that Leonard is injured, he did not show up on the injury report and the most significant piece to turning the offense around is getting him comfortable. It’s pretty clear Leonard isn’t confident in his progressions and reads, which has caused him to miss open receivers, double-clutch passes, and not take some shot plays down the field where he has a favorable matchup. 

Yet Denbrock didn’t use a lack of comfort as an excuse, even if it was real. 

“Listen, nobody wants to hear from me that we're really just two games into this because the results Saturday were absolutely unacceptable on every level,” stated Denrock. “The reality is, when you look at it, it sounds like an excuse. That's why I hate to even bring it up, but it's not an excuse that he's two games into what we're asking him to do, and he learns every single snap that he's out there, good and bad. And, hopefully, that process, I can help speed that process up by some of the ways that I structure things, so that they are hitting his mind and his skill level the right way.”

Notre Dame’s offensive issues also aren’t solely on Leonard. Jaden Greathouse dropped a deep ball, a play we’ve seen him make with ease during practices. And then some of Leonard’s balls might not seem accurate as it’s also on the receivers to run routes at the correct depth or adjust their route based on coverage. 

“It's a combination of all those things and I think probably that's where the inconsistency from us offensively has shown up, probably more than anywhere — whether it's route depth, whether it's protection, whether it's decision-making, whether it’s all those things,” explained Denbrock. “Dropped balls. All those things have contributed to us having the poor showing that we've had in the passing game so far, and we're working really hard every day to try to make those things better.” 

Leonard has likely found out he’s not hidden at Duke anymore as every mistake is highlighted and losing games isn’t accepted in South Bend. Denbrock’s advice for his quarterback has centered around that fact this week. 

“Notre Dame is a tough place to be quarterback and you're going to feel that here over the course of the next whenever, until we get this offense functioning at a much higher level,” said Denbrock. “He understands that. He's a mature guy. He understands what he's tasked with.

“I also think it's important for me to always evaluate and recognize what I can do to help him more. I’ve got to help him more. Whatever that looks like and whatever that ends up being, you'll see a little bit of that on Saturday. But the fact of the matter is, he's got to be comfortable playing quarterback within this system and the things that we're asking him to do and that falls on me to make sure that I get that right.” 

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