And In That Corner ... A look at new Notre Dame transfer quarterback Riley Leonard from the Duke perspective

No matter how the last two offseasons may have seemed, Notre Dame has only a partial-scheduling agreement with the ACC. There are no terms about ACC star quarterbacks transferring to South Bend to close their collegiate careers.

But that overlap with this week’s commitment from Duke quarterback Riley Leonard allows for an easy follow-up with Conor O’Neill, the publisher of Devils Illustrated.

DF: Conor, I know I promised I would never force one of these Q&As on you again after you worked through three in the last calendar year, but Notre Dame continues to be intertwined with your two beats of Wake Forest and Duke. So I appreciate yet another assist.

The Irish pulling in Riley Leonard stands out to me on a few off-field fronts, so let me start with some of that … When did you first move from thinking it would make sense for Leonard to transfer to outright expecting him to?

CO: I honestly don’t know if I can pinpoint that one.

You go into the season seeing him ranked as high as third among draft-eligible QBs, so you’re already in Duke-better-enjoy-him-while-he’s-here mode. It’s tough to tell whether the strong performance against Clemson or the foot injuries taking him off the field did more to make it obvious it would be his last season in Durham.

In early November, it became clear that Duke had an abundance of quarterback talent, given three of them started and won ACC games. That led down a path of thinking there was no way all three would return next season and, when thinking about which one would be the most attractive to QB-needy programs capable of throwing around large NIL numbers, Leonard was the clear choice.

I know he has some tie to Auburn, but were there other schools you saw as logical destinations? Both these two questions are part of my attempt to frame the shallow pool of top-tier quarterbacks on the transfer market this winter, making it all that much more impressive Notre Dame reeled one in.

No, I think this was always a two-horse race. And up until shortly after he announced he was heading into the portal, I thought Auburn was the frontrunner.

So one more question on that, one that you cannot answer with total conviction, but you have a better idea of Leonard as a person than anyone on this end does: Let’s say there are a usual handful of reasons to pick a transfer destination — 2024 college football success, NFL development, NIL opportunities, location, previous relationships. What one(s) do you think most motivated Leonard’s decision?

I think it’s a heavy dose of the first two, a good bit of the third one, and vapors of the rest.

Leonard is kind of softspoken and extremely polite — he once stopped myself and another reporter and talked with us for 5 minutes to ask if we saw him wipe out on his bicycle earlier that week. (We had not.)

But his competitive edge comes out during games, and it’s a fierce one. We constantly heard about his competitiveness from Mike Elko and his Duke teammates. I think he’s ultra competitor, even if you don’t get that impression from chatting with him on the Tuesday of a game week.

Being realistic, he wants to maximize his value. That’s obviously a different conversation comparing Duke with a first-year coach, no certainty that he’d have the same offensive coordinator, to what Notre Dame can offer — in terms of scheme, surrounding talent and NIL opportunities.

Now, to Leonard on the field, I don’t see him as a true dual threat, just in that he does look downfield before he takes off. But I know you think he is at his absolute best when he has established his legs in a game. If we were to continue this debate, I would suggest that was in part a reflection of Duke’s offensive line, Leonard needing to move like that to keep defenses more honest. If I’m right, then the wonder is, how is Leonard as a passer? What are his aerial strengths?

This is what I’m most interested in watching next season — and it’s already dawned on me that neither Duke nor Wake Forest shows up on the Irish schedule.

I think there’s a lot left to be desired in Leonard’s game as a passer. Maybe that’s a little too harsh, because to your point, Duke was a power-run offense when it was at its best this season.

He’s accurate in the short-to-intermediate passing game. He was more accurate on downfield throws in 2022 (21-for-51 on throws of 20-plus yards) than he was in limited time this year (4-for-20), per Pro Football Focus.

PFF shouldn’t be trusted as the end-all, be-all of college football analytics … but I think it’s fair to say his strengths as a passer revolve on getting the ball out quickly and accurately.

He comes from a more traditional offense than Sam Hartman did, and Leonard is more mobile than Hartman. (There is some form of irony that Hartman’s greatest Irish run, that 4th-and-16 conversion, came against the Blue Devils.) What does Leonard need to most work on to both succeed in 2024 and impress the NFL?

It’s everything up there about passing.

I’ve liked Leonard’s pocket presence/awareness. He’s one of the better runners I’ve seen. Everything about talking to him and his coaches over the past two years tells me he has the acumen to be a premier college quarterback, eventually an NFL QB.

He’s just got to be a consistent passer.

I maintain it is too soon to genuinely gauge anyone’s 2024 schedule; the transfer market demands a slower evaluation process. But Notre Dame’s 2024 schedule looks weakened. Texas A&M is obviously in flux. Louisville, Florida State and USC all need to replace most of their offensive production. Maybe my wonder here is too much of a psychological query, how steady can Leonard be for a season? Let’s phrase it this way: We saw Hartman’s floor against Louisville in early October. What is Leonard’s floor for a random Saturday?

I think Leonard’s floor is around the same as Hartman’s, and I think the ceiling is probably higher.

There’s more room to grow. As you know, Hartman was entering his sixth season of college football and turned 24 over the summer. He was who he was.

If Leonard is able to acclimate to Gerad Parker’s system and Notre Dame’s new cadre of receivers, he can thrive at Notre Dame. That’s just a bigger “if” than most realize, I think, given he was a developmental project of David Cutcliffe’s who spent most of his high school career thinking he was going to be a basketball player.

follow @d_farmer