Unfortunately, Riley Leonard’s Mom Was Kind of Right*

*At least about throwing the football, as if that caveat makes it any easier to swallow

You’ve probably heard this story before, considering College Gameday did a segment on it when Duke hosted Notre Dame last season. Riley Leonard’s mom texts him “You suck, love you” before football games to remind him to stay humble. Unfortunately for the Irish, it seems Mrs. Leonard was right. That’s because her son is, at best, inconsistent in his ability to competently pass a football.

To be clear, Leonard doesn’t completely suck. (The fact I had to write that sentence is dispiriting). He’s an amazing running quarterback. But you can’t call him a dual-threat when Notre Dame’s offensive coordinator has to dial up one-read-and-throw plays just to give him some confidence. It only made matters worse when, early in Notre Dame’s 28-3 win over Miami (OH), Leonard drew a chorus of boos from the Irish faithful after air-mailing two of those passes to open teammates standing five yards away from him.

What makes it worse is that you can tell Leonard is in his own head. Missing those two easy passes was a sign of a quarterback with the yips. He managed to pull himself together and log his first touchdown pass of the season — a 38-yard strike to Clemson transfer receiver Beaux Collins — but Leonard finished the day 16-25 passing for 154 yards. That ain’t it.

Even after scoring two rushing touchdowns, it looked like Leonard would head to the sideline unsatisfied. Maybe that’s a good thing because it could motivate him to upgrade his passing (doubtful). I find it more likely that the negativity is going to fester with him throughout the season. And Notre Dame will eventually pay the price for it.

To be clear, I take no pleasure in calling Leonard out like this. People on social media will use the fact that college athletes now get paid through NIL and use their “professional” status as an excuse to criticize them. But these are still college kids and, speaking personally, it feels sleazy to drag these guys through the mud.

But, at a certain point, we have to face facts. And the fact of the matter is that Notre Dame’s offense is on life support with Leonard as quarterback. Eventually they’ll face a defense capable of taking away the Irish ground game, at which point the obituary will be written.

That result wasn’t intentional, but it falls directly at the feet of head coach Marcus Freeman.

People love Freeman. You can chalk a lot of that up to the fact that he’s young, attractive, charismatic and, let’s be honest, a minority. In short, he’s cool. You can also credit the adulation he receives to his very open love for the University of Notre Dame, affection which his predecessor never showed and thus never received in kind from fans.

But Freeman’s resume has pathetic home losses to Marshall, Stanford and Northern Illinois. Those can’t just be forgotten by finally releasing the Under Armour apparel he’s been keeping to himself.

Freeman failed to bring in a transfer quarterback in his first year, which was a mistake. He didn’t repeat the error, grabbing Sam Hartman from the portal last year. That experiment ended in disappointment. Then Freeman decided to grab another mercenary at quarterback by taking Leonard from Duke, and that experience is probably shortening lifespans with every gameday.

I don’t criticize the decision to take a transfer quarterback for this season, because we all saw how the Tyler Buchner/Drew Pyne experiment went in 2022. It would have been a gamble to ride with a quarterback room comprised of Steve Angeli, Kenny Minchey and true freshman CJ Carr. So it’s not fair to argue (as some part of me admittedly wants to) that Notre Dame should have just developed from within for a year and seen what they could do in 2025 with a potential second-year starter for the first time in five years. (But, to make that argument, I think the dividends in 2025 would be far better than they now will be because Notre Dame will have a bunch of developmentally stunted signal callers who have ceded practice and game reps to portal rentals for multiple season).

I never disagreed with taking a transfer quarterback for 2024. I never even disagreed with the quarterback Freeman chose. But Freeman chose him, and four games have been enough to bear out that it was probably the wrong choice.

To the aforementioned chorus of boos thrown at Leonard, Freeman said, “We don’t make decisions based off what the sentiment of the stadium is.” One wonders if the sentiments of NIL donors receive better treatment.

Photo by Justin Casterline/Getty Images

In my opinion, one of three things happened this offseason: Freeman and his staff misevaluated Leonard’s passing ability, Freeman overestimated the ability of his quarterbacks coach (Gino Guidugli) and offensive coordinator (Mike Denbrock) to develop Leonard as a passer, or both. Having Leonard miss much of the offseason following an unexpected surgery certainly didn’t help, but Leonard’s known injury risk offsets some of the benefit of the doubt on that front.

As I see it, Notre Dame could have made the 12-team College Football Playoff this year with one of its three current backup QBs. But Freeman (rightfully) wanted more. Therefore, the decision to bring in Leonard represented Freeman and his staff pushing their chips into the middle of the table, betting the house that they could turn Leonard into a facsimile of Lamar Jackson and make it to the CFP semifinals or farther. Four games later and the dealer is about to hit 21.

And what makes the situation so frustrating it that Leonard probably remains Notre Dame’s best shot to have a postseason of any consequence this year, because his running ability is so elite. Angeli might have a decent chance of getting the Irish through the rest of a still very weak schedule without a loss, but this offense was built around Leonard’s legs, something not replicable by any other quarterback on the roster — except maybe the now-walk-on wide receiver Buchner. Plus, even if Angeli got Notre Dame to the Playoff, facing another CFP team would probably be a rude awakening for him. By that point, trying to play Leonard again would be a non-starter.

But this was all part of Freeman’s gamble. Taking a quarterback with a CFP-semifinal ceiling and a loss-to-Northern-Illinois floor. Knowing he won’t bench Leonard (barring this season going off the rails) because that would risk alienating his NIL donors and future prospective quarterback transfers. Stunting the development of his quarterback room for yet another year. Driving home the reputation that Notre Dame’s quarterbacks can’t get the ball to receivers even when those receivers are pretty good (although, calling this year’s crop of wideouts “pretty good” feels generous).

It all adds to the increasing angst of Notre Dame fans who have waited too long for another national championship. What only makes it more nerve-racking is that Leonard is still the best hope for doing something special this season, slim as that hope may be.

That sucks.