Notre Dame’s Riley Leonard, the small-town QB with championship ambitions (2024)

Riley Leonard laughed. Then Notre Dame’s new quarterback named names.

Scanning a photo snapped outside Doak Campbell Stadium last October, Leonard works left to right, trying to remember these 37 people dressed in Duke gear.

His coaches from Fairhope (Ala.) High, three-and-a-half hours west of Tallahassee, are easy. There are his parents, Chad and Heather, next to his high school girlfriend, Molly Walding, and her parents, Mike and Sherry. The town mayor, Sherry Sullivan, also made the trip. The coaches’ wives’ names are all preceded by “Miss,” as is Southern custom. There are a dozen kids and two FatHeads of Leonard’s face in the background.

Leonard confidently names 29 in the traveling party from Fairhope, a population of barely 20,000 — “That’s a boyfriend of somebody, I think his name is John?” — all there to watch what would be one of his final games at Duke.

Family history and modern circ*mstances have since delivered Leonard to Notre Dame. The transfer may have stretched those hometown roots. It may have strengthened them, too.

“I’m sure a lot of guys from the South and small towns, whenever they go to an SEC school, they have a huge following,” Leonard says. “But for me to go to Duke and have that same amount of following and same amount of support kind of speaks to the magnitude of the people, their character.”

As Leonard prepares for his final collegiate season, leading a program with designs on the College Football Playoff in coach Marcus Freeman’s third year, he’s never been farther from home. And yet, as he looks around campus, he feels it close.

“It’s pretty easy to see why this place would be really, really attractive to him and why it would be easy for him to fit in here,” said offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock. “Probably from our first conversation I knew it, just because of talking to him about the things that he values the most.”

Leonard is a devout Christian, and few places wear their faith more comfortably than Notre Dame. The lakes around campus remind him of the ones he fished around Alabama. Leonard recognizes the same traits in people on campus as people back home. He just hears different accents.

When Notre Dame opens in prime time at Texas A&M on Aug. 31, it will see Leonard’s values at work. The program has built its entire offense around them after he spent this year recovering from two ankle surgeries, medical hangovers from the Blue Devils’ final play against Notre Dame last season, when now-teammate Howard Cross III rolled the quarterback’s right ankle from behind.

An unfortunate end to a great game. Notre Dame’s Howard Cross strip sacks Duke QB Riley Leonard for a game-clinching fumble.

On his way to the ground, Leonard gets his ankle twisted and is eventually taken off of the field. pic.twitter.com/sqTZ0yNxSg

— The Comeback (@thecomeback) October 1, 2023

In South Bend, while teammates endured winter conditioning this January, Leonard watched. During spring practice, he took little more than mental reps. Leonard wondered what his new teammates thought of the big-time transfer seemingly in no hurry to work.

“It was the hardest thing in the world because all these people think I’m a highly ranked quarterback, they don’t know who I am, they don’t know the competitor I am,” Leonard said. “They just think I’m a pretty boy quarterback who wants to come in here and get my NIL and sit around and skip spring ball, skip summer as I can, cruise into fall camp.”

Around Notre Dame, Leonard didn’t let on how hard the transition had been. Back home, people knew better. His father would send him Bible verses via text. He’d message with his grandfather Gib Leonard or his youth coach, Chris Wilkinson. Some nights he’d light a candle at the grotto.

“I really believe that (support) kind of changed the trajectory of my career,” Leonard said.

Look in the Fairhope weight room rafters to see what Riley Leonard left behind. There’s a shard of a 45-pound plate up there, autographed by the quarterback with, “broken with bare hands on June 30, 2020” written underneath. The story is a stretch, obviously, and Leonard admits he just dropped the plate on the corner for a squat rack, breaking it into pieces.

Or visit the office of counselor Cammie Adams, who’s quick to show off a signed Leonard helmet and football card of the former Fairhope quarterback. Adams has pennants of all the colleges her former students attend lining her office. She wonders when Leonard will deliver one from Notre Dame.

Stories come easy around Fairhope High, the time Leonard lost a pingpong match to assistant principal Josh Howell, only to go home, practice and “wax my butt,” the next day as Howell tells it. Or when Leonard came home last summer to host a youth camp, then donated the money to his grandfather’s charity, Buy A Brick, which builds schools and infrastructure in Zimbabwe. Or when Leonard agreed to referee the Fairhope youth basketball league on Saturdays, only to watch attendance double.

“He’s a champion of the town,” said Fairhope football coach Tim Carter. “Ain’t had one better.”

Leonard was a two-sport star here, perhaps not in equal measure. There are two wall-sized photos of Leonard’s basketball teams in that locker room, commemorating Fairhope making the state championship game his junior year. Leonard’s dunks remain legend. It took him deep into his high school career to pick football over basketball, late enough that Leonard wonders where he could have gone if he’d spent winter weekends on five-step drops instead of playing hoops.

Duke’s QB Riley Leonard has more hops than yours 👀 pic.twitter.com/ctXd957Bok

— Danny Kanell (@dannykanell) September 4, 2023

Leonard was a little bit of everything to Fairhope, elite quarterback, one-time wide receiver, star small forward and de facto ambassador for a town that doesn’t advertise.

If there’s a clickable list, Fairhope has made it: best place to retire, best place to raise a family, etc. The town’s population has doubled in the past 10 years. Entering Fairhope from the north, there’s literally a “scenic drive” that hugs Mobile Bay on a wooded road lined by American flags. Fairhope stages four Mardi Gras parades annually, including one for dogs, Mystic Mutts of Revelry. Balconies protrude from downtown buildings, just like the galleries of the French Quarter.

When Leonard brought six Notre Dame receivers home for a summer passing retreat, he took them to Mr. Gene’s Beans ice cream on De La Mare Avenue, just off Section Street. The downtown is modeled off Carmel, Calif., with more than 1 million white lights draped on the trees. Everywhere you look, from the city blocks to the town pier to the Grand Hotel, once a Civil War hospital, the Fairhope blooms.

“We don’t have an advertising budget, we plant those dollars,” said Sullivan, the mayor. “Fairhope just has something that a lot of towns don’t have, that special feeling of small-town Americana that makes people want to come back.”

At the school football stadium, a cannon fires when Fairhope takes the field or scores a touchdown. The shots ring out around the neighborhoods, game updates for the few people who aren’t in the stands. A retirement community was recently finished close to the stadium and during a zoning meeting the builders wondered if the cannon was a permanent fixture. There was little debate.

“Listen, just so you know, the cannon is across the street and it’s not going to stop firing. So we just want to give you a heads up,” Sullivan said. “That’s when you know you’re a small town.”

Sullivan routinely attended Fairhope games; that’s what small-town mayors do. They typically don’t drive to neighboring states to watch former players as she did last fall — and she’s already secured tickets for Notre Dame’s game in Atlanta in October.

“For kids to see somebody from their hometown who’s always open to them, it makes them a better person. And it gives them something to strive for,” Sullivan said. “Riley’s doing this. I can go play for Duke or Notre Dame.”

Chris Wilkinson knows what you might be thinking at this point.

“You hear all these good stories and you know somebody is sitting back thinking, I gotta find some dirt here. Well, good luck,” said Wilkinson, who coached Leonard in football, basketball and baseball, from 8 years old through middle school. “The guy’s a Hallmark card.”

A 6-foot-4, 216-pound Hallmark card who talks copious trash, according to his teammates. He can hold a grudge with a smile. He doesn’t back down, even when he loses. When Benjamin Morrison made a one-handed interception of Leonard in spring practice, Leonard protested the cornerback was out of bounds. Five months later, he still won’t concede the point.

Wilkinson has seen these sides of Leonard for almost a decade. He understands the wiring of Notre Dame’s quarterback because he saw it being installed. Wilkinson coached alongside Chad Leonard for most of those youth sports seasons. Wilkinson’s son Luke was Leonard’s point guard and wide receiver. They’re still close. The families live a mile apart.

Wilkinson also remembers the clipboard launched by Chad during a youth basketball game and the 20-point comeback that followed. When Chad watches Riley’s football games, he’ll pace the stadium, unable to sit still. If Leonard’s happy-go-lucky disposition comes from Heather, that edge comes from Chad.

“Like when I was in T-ball, if I was ever in the outfield, he’d be behind the outfield fence just screaming at me,” Leonard said. “But it’s funny because right after the game, my dad is like the most supportive person ever.”

Chad and Heather grew up around Washington, D.C., Chad graduating from Gonzaga Prep before playing basketball at The Citadel. Roman Oben, the NFL father of defensive end R.J. Oben, who also transferred to Notre Dame from Duke, was one of his classmates.

Now Chad runs golf courses around Fairhope. When the family moved to Alabama almost 20 years ago they didn’t intend to stay this long. But they grew attached to Fairhope as their boys — Riley is the middle of three, between older brother Cole and younger brother Devin — grew up running through its woods.

“They’re outside barefoot running around. We’re from D.C. and it’s like, ‘What happened?’” Chad said. “We decided if we were gonna move to Alabama, we were gonna move to Alabama. There’s a farmer’s field behind us, cows, a pond, they’d go back and fish, get kicked off.”

Notre Dame may have felt a lifetime away back then, even with Leonard’s great-grandfather James Curran having played for the school under Frank Leahy. Leonard half-jokes that he would have committed to Notre Dame out of high school if he was good enough, self-aware to know he was not.

Three seasons at Duke changed that. Leonard won the starting job as a sophom*ore, playing himself into a potential pro prospect by throwing for 20 touchdowns, rushing for another 13. His junior year at Duke could have been his final one in college. Instead, he finished with as many touchdown passes as interceptions (three), never recovering from that ankle injury.

The Notre Dame game showed what Leonard was not when he completed 12 of 27 passes for 134 yards. It also showed why bigger programs wanted to finish his development. Leonard ran for 88 yards, his legs frustrating Notre Dame’s defense until the end. Chad Leonard said Ohio State, Oregon, Georgia, Washington State, Alabama and Auburn all showed interest. He also said Notre Dame always led. That feeling was basically mutual.

The Irish scouted Leonard and Kansas State’s Will Howard last November to follow Sam Hartman. Former Irish offensive coordinator Gerad Parker made two visits to Durham. He never traveled to Manhattan, Kan.

Howard signed with Ohio State.

“Riley is a better leader. Riley’s a better runner,” Parker said. “Riley is so talented. He’s so much more athletic. There was a consensus he was the guy.”

Last December, Leonard visited Notre Dame with his parents. Heather stopped at Dick’s to get her middle son some cold weather gear for the trip. Notre Dame may not be far from home spiritually, but weather is weather. As the Irish coaches tried to make an impression, they took the family to the stadium’s north entrance. Touchdown Jesus at their backs, they walked down the tunnel.

“Got out of the car and the ‘Rudy’ music is playing,” Heather said. “How do you say no?”

Riley James Leonard committed to Notre Dame on Dec. 12.

Leonard stood down, reduced to an interested observer during spring practice. He felt guilty, half-in with a team he was supposed to lead. He’d already skipped winter conditioning after a first ankle surgery. The second wiped out almost all of spring practice. For all the reasons to come to Notre Dame, Leonard was barely a passenger once he arrived.

“You’re sitting there watching everybody get these reps and not being able to throw to the guys,” Leonard said. “And you’re thinking, man, how can I make up for this?”

Leonard hatched a plan to bring six receivers — Beaux Collins, Jayden Thomas, Jayden Harrison, Deion Colzie, Kris Mitchell and Jaden Greathouse — to Fairhope this summer, along with freshman quarterback CJ Carr. Leonard found free lodging. He connected with Philip Rivers, a neighbor on the south side of town. The Irish players trained at Rivers’ house, which had a 60-yard field in the back. They hung in his man cave, a shrine to the eight-time Pro Bowler.

Working slants and posts was secondary to logging hours together. Leonard finally was able to lead the way he did at Duke. Back in Durham, he first won the job during his sophom*ore summer by winning the weight room. Now the same thing was happening with Notre Dame. Leonard led. The receivers followed.

“He’s just like a perfect person, Tim Tebow kind of a person,” Harrison said. “He cares about everybody, even people he doesn’t know. You only meet a little amount of people like that.”

“As a person, he is who I want my son to be one day, which is pretty cool,” Thomas said. “As a quarterback, you love someone who is like that and can walk through the building with a smile on his face.”

When the quarterback returned to Notre Dame for summer workouts, the Irish got the full Leonard experience. He challenged Collins in the weight room and on conditioning tests. If the Irish bombed in a player-led-practice, Leonard got the offense right. One day during summer, quarterbacks coach Gino Guidugli asked Leonard how a concept worked with the offensive line the previous day. Leonard said just OK. And that he’d already met with the line about it after hours. Then Leonard suggested Notre Dame start filming extra throwing sessions so the quarterback could watch it back with the receivers.

“It’s little things like that where you pick up that he’s starting to wrap his arm around this group,” Guidugli said. “He was like, ‘I have to come in and kind of prove myself.’ It’s hard to do if you’re not out there doing it.”

Back in Fairhope, no one is surprised. This is the same story Leonard wrote in the southwest Alabama town many times over. It’s the one he wrote at Duke, helping the program go from afterthought to the national spotlight. It’s just now that the story has more readership.

On opening night in College Station, the town of Fairhope will be watching. Some will make the eight-hour trip through Mississippi and Louisiana and into Texas. And the next time Leonard’s support system from back home gathers for a photo, they’ll all be wearing Notre Dame colors.

“Ain’t it funny how it played out?” Carter said. “He told me, ‘I think we have a chance to win it all.’”

(Top photo: Michael Reaves, David Jensen / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)