Riley Leonard – the passer – gives Notre Dame a new threat as CFP inches closer

SOUTH BEND, Ind. – Greg McElroy meant what he said when Riley Leonard ripped a 26-yard pass to Jordan Faison just before halftime of Notre Dame’s 51-14 blowout of Navy. The ESPN analyst had watched plenty of the Irish quarterback in preparation for the call: the good, the bad and that second interception against Northern Illinois. Maybe that’s why what McElroy saw stood out so much. Because he hadn’t seen it before.

Leonard faked a handoff to Jadarian Price, hitched once, then fired the ball to Faison, who was breaking toward the left sideline. The pass was on time. It had velocity. The ball got Faison open, as if the route wasn’t enough.

“One of the best throws I think I’ve ever seen Riley Leonard make,” McElroy said. “That was a dime. From a long way away, the anticipation, the accuracy, off the charts good.”

A few weeks later, that Leonard pass still sticks with McElroy. So does the 37-yard score to Beaux Collins in the third quarter, when Leonard went vertical into a wind storm. A healthy skeptic of Leonard the passer in the preseason, McElroy has begun to come around on Notre Dame’s quarterback.

“I’m not gonna lie. I feel pretty good about him,” McElroy said. “I don’t think he’s ever going to be a guy that’s like a freak show throwing it. He’s just not gonna be that guy. He’s gonna have to anticipate throws. He’s gonna need to cut it loose on deep balls. Everything in his body has to be aligned for him to push the ball.

“But, I’m not being hyperbolic, that throw (to Faison), he really uncorked on it. Go back and look at that one. Anticipation, before out of the break, longer throw, well-timed throw. That was big time. Really good.”

As Notre Dame enters the stretch run of four games in four weeks with a College Football Playoff bid for the taking, Leonard’s development may be the difference between cruising into the postseason and laboring to get there. Maybe it was always going to be that way considering the out-sized impact of quarterbacks. But now, arguably for the first time, Leonard looks like the reliable dual-threat quarterback Notre Dame thought it was getting from the transfer portal all along.

There’s a difference between a running quarterback and one who can also hurt defenses with his legs. If Leonard was the former in September, he’s grown into the latter in October. And that makes November a fascinating growth opportunity, because what if Leonard has another level?

Leonard’s passer rating through four games was well outside the top 100 nationally. In the past four, it’s basically the same as Georgia’s Carson Beck in the top 50, although that doesn’t include Leonard’s 11 rushing touchdowns or 27 missed tackles forced, according to Pro Football Focus. Leonard has been a first-down machine with his legs and a red zone problem on the ground all season. Only Ohio State, Indiana and Kansas are better at turning red zone trips into touchdowns among Power 4 schools.

But Leonard the passer now gives the Irish something new.

“They’re hitting their stride right now, but I don’t think they’ve reached the ceiling,” said David Morris of QB Country, who’s trained Leonard since fourth grade and has worked with dozens of NFL quarterbacks. “I think it’s purely repetition with these guys in this offense. It’s hard to go into a new offense with new personnel and hit the ground running. It just takes a while.”

Morris checks in with Leonard weekly, but they haven’t worked out in person since the summer. When Leonard brought a half-dozen receivers to Alabama this offseason, Morris, who’s based in Mobile, connected with the group, which included CJ Carr. Morris had high expectations for Leonard in his one season in South Bend and contends Notre Dame’s quarterback is as talented as anyone in the sport. He also concedes losing an entire offseason due to ankle surgeries, plus how Notre Dame reworked its receiver room while installing a new playbook, put Leonard behind.

What Morris saw during the season’s first few weeks was a quarterback who didn’t stay consistent with his footwork and sometimes let his arm slot get loose. Now, Morris sees a quarterback who is as comfortable on the field as Leonard has always been off it.

“There’s a misconception about Riley. When people say he’s an elite athlete with his legs but you get what you get as a thrower, that is 100 percent wrong. He’s an elite-level thrower. He’s just starting to hit his groove,” Morris said. “He’s a top-five passer in college football, but he didn’t necessarily look like that early.

“If somebody’s preparing for him and they’re not worried about him being able to throw it, they’re gonna get their ass kicked.”

This all feels different for Notre Dame’s receivers, too, the position that’s had to ride the quarterback wave most. When Kris Mitchell transferred from FIU, he didn’t expect to replicate last season’s 64 catches for 1,118 yards and seven touchdowns. He also expected to do more than 13 catches for 125 yards and two touchdowns through eight games. The winning helps. So does feeling like his quarterback is improving.

At FIU, Mitchell spent most of his career catching deep balls (basically working the top of the route tree). Notre Dame asked for something different, working short and intermediate routes. It’s just that Mitchell rarely got the ball when he did. He was never quite sure if Leonard saw the coverage like he did. He didn’t know if Leonard would make an accurate throw into space, either.

Now that’s changing.

“We weren’t on the same page at the beginning of the season, we’re getting better and better at it. We know like, oh this coverage, the ball’s coming to me right here.” Mitchell said. “He’s playing a lot faster. He knows he can run the ball. So he’s playing more and more confident with that and the coaches have unbelievable confidence in him that he can make a play.”

That faith, which sometimes felt blind during the season’s opening month, has turned into conviction.

During the preseason, offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock predicted some of this, warning Notre Dame’s offense wouldn’t hit the ground running but would eventually find its stride. He lived some version of this before at LSU, bringing Jayden Daniels in from Arizona State and struggling through the season’s first half before Daniels grew into a Heisman Trophy winner in his second year there. Leonard doesn’t have that kind of time at Notre Dame, but there are still four games to play and something potentially bigger at the end.

“Growth was going to be, at times, a little bit painful to watch,” Denbrock said. “But it was going to be — and it has been — evident that it’s being made. And it’s happening before all of our eyes.”

(Photo: Vincent Carchietta / Imagn Images)