The easiest way to understand why quarterback Riley Leonard has Notre Dame on the verge of its first national title game in more than a decade is to watch him run.
Really, any run will do. But perhaps the best — or at least, most recent — example is the run on third-and-7 with 5:53 left in the Allstate Sugar Bowl. The Irish were nursing a 23-10 lead, chewing up the final minutes in a game of keep-away, and Leonard needed a conversion. He took the snap, took a half-step forward, then tucked the ball and darted outside. He slid out of a tackle behind the line with a stiff-arm, then outran a defender to the perimeter. At the line to gain, he met Georgia star Malaki Starks head-on. Starks went low. Leonard leaped — flew almost — in a head-first jailbreak for the marker.
Leonard soared over Starks, landed 3 yards beyond the line-to-gain, popped up with the ball in his hand and signaled for the first down.
The crowd went wild. His teammates went wild. Leonard, the kid from a little town in southwest Alabama, at least reached something close to wild.
“Everybody keeps telling me to stop doing that,” Leonard said of the hard run. “I did it. And it worked out. But we’re in the playoffs, so it’s like — put your butt on the line.”
Notre Dame QB Riley Leonard flipped over him for the first down 😯 pic.twitter.com/p1JNgmQOCw
— ESPN (@espn) January 3, 2025
Notre Dame’s drive ate another four minutes off the clock, and after stuffing Georgia on downs, the Irish celebrated a Sugar Bowl win — their biggest victory in more than 30 years. Now, their next biggest game is a date with Penn State in the playoff semifinals on Thursday in the Capital One Orange Bowl (7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN).
Notre Dame is here for many reasons, but perhaps the biggest one is Leonard’s drive to win at all costs. Not that anyone doubted Leonard’s competitiveness when he arrived at Notre Dame in January as an injured transfer from Duke. But what he has shown in the past three months since the Irish last lost a football game — a loss Leonard took full responsibility for — is that he’ll put his butt, his shoulder, his head and anything else he needs to on the line if it means winning a football game.
“It’s in his DNA,” said offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock. “I knew he was a competitive guy. That’s a strong trait we knew he had. But it’s so much greater…
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