Confidence Growing in Notre Dame's Offense, Riley Leonard

The first month of the season has been a roller coaster ride for Notre Dame as the Irish sit at 4-1 coming out of September. 

In fact, if you asked most experts or fans before the season kicked off, most would have had Notre Dame sitting at 4-1. The only difference would be most projected the Irish to lose at Texas A&M and not to Northern Illinois. 

That said, Notre Dame is on track to keep its college football playoff goals alive and perhaps the most exciting piece of the equation is that quarterback Riley Leonard appears to be turning the corner. 

Leonard has tallied nine touchdowns over the last three games, including three big ones against Louisville to give Notre Dame a top 15 win. 

It might be easy for Notre Dame and the fans to get excited about where Leonard can take the offense, but he’s not looking ahead. 

“It’s kind of hard to look at the bigger picture sometimes,” stated Leonard. “I feel I’m very narrow in my vision. I see right now that the team is better than we were last week. The offense is better than it was last week. The defense is better than it was last week. We’re starting to roll and get our confidence back.

“Big picture, who knows. We have a lot of potential, but right now, I think we’re doing alright.”

The Irish offense might be ‘alright,’ but the Alabama native admitted he’s gaining confidence. From the outside, one can easily see the reads are coming quicker and Leonard is playing faster, which the 6-foot-4, 216-pounder credits the job Mike Denbrock and Gino Guidugli have done over the last three weeks. 

“It was the most confident I’ve felt,” Leonard said of the Louisville game. “I think it was because of my preparation, and it’s all due to the coaches. I think we’re starting to understand each other and understand the plays I really like, so they do a great job calling that. 

Notre Dame Stadium was a little uneasy to start the Louisville game as the Fighting Irish fumbled the opening kickoff and a few plays later, the Cardinals took a quick 7-0 lead. 

The good news for Marcus Freeman’s team was the Notre Dame sideline wasn’t impacted by the mistake. In fact, it might be a turning point for this team as they answered the bell with three straight touchdowns to start the game. 

“I would say it’s a 3-4 hour game, so to have that mishap that early, you worry about it, but you don’t worry about it too much,” explained Leonard. “I think we did a great job on offense of emphasizing and having urgency to start really fast. Even though that mishap happened, we had all the confidence in the world we were going to start fast on offense because we did it every single day during practice.” 

Now, it certainly wasn’t the cleanest game as Notre Dame’s offense was non-existent for a stretch against the Cardinals, but that’s also somewhat expected when top 20 teams meet. 

Yet, Notre Dame made plays when they were needed. 

“That was a very complex defense and I felt like I knew exactly what I was going to get presnap the majority of the time,” Leonard said. “It’s a testament to the hard work we put in throughout the week and paying attention to the little details. There’s a game within the game and a lot of people don’t see that, but I was mentally prepared and knew what I was going to get.”

Notre Dame capitalized on three big plays as Leonard founding Jaden Greathouse for a long touchdown, and then Jayden Harrison’s 34-yard catch and run led to a throwback screen to Jeremiyah Love, who took it 32 yards to the house. 

“Those are the ones that freak me out,” Leonard said of his deep balls. “I’m like, “Don’t miss them’ because I missed a couple last week. It was good. Always a good feeling.” 

The big plays also go back to Leonard and Denbrock being on the same page. Notre Dame’s offensive coordinator has a feel for what his quarterback can do, but also knew when to call both plays. 

“No better feeling than a quarterback when coach just calls a play and you know it’s going work,” Leonard explained. “We called a couple there. They weren’t doing a great job in and outing the rub routes, so whenever Jayden Harrison popped open, it’s exactly what we had expected and anticipated. 

“For the throwback screen to work, we practiced it all week. What a great time to call it. Worked out perfectly. They were in the perfect defense against it. Those are easy plays to execute and we did.” 

Notre Dame is at the end of a much-needed bye week as several key players are in need of rest and recovery. 

Leonard knows what he needs out of the bye, which involves some clearing of the mind while also making sure he leads his team into next week as Stanford comes to South Bend. 

“I’ll probably golf and hopefully catch a bass or two,” said Leonard. “I have to get my body right. We have to learn how to handle success. We didn’t do a good job of it after our week one win, so being able to handle success is a priority for us. We have to show maturity and focus on the next game.” 

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