SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Less than a third of the way through Notre Dame’s 15 spring football practices, head coach Marcus Freeman suddenly has to reshuffle his timetable to name a starting quarterback, restructure the remaining spring practices and savor the notion that depth matters.
Saturday after practice No. 4 of the spring, Freeman revealed that the minor right ankle surgery that aspiring starting QB Riley Leonard underwent back in January required additional surgery. That happened on Friday.
Meanwhile, junior Steve Angeli — Leonard’s main competition — as well as sophomore Kenny Minchey and early enrolled freshman CJ Carr persevere with carrying on some semblance of competition and learning a new offense under new offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock.
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“Riley Leonard will be out the next few weeks,” Freeman said of the Duke transfer who enrolled in mid-January.
Freeman said the surgery addressed a stress fracture that was beginning to develop.
“Basically, the surgery was to exchange the current plate he had in his ankle with a new one. The doctors felt it went extremely well. The overall prognosis and the health of his ankle is excellent.
“We’ll see when he can get back. We’re not going to put a timetable on it, We know it’s going to be a few weeks. We're not saying he’s going to be out for the [entire] spring. There is a chance he comes back and participates in some capacity during spring ball.”
Notre Dame concludes spring practice on April 20 with the Blue-Gold Game at Notre Dame Stadium.
“Right now all we’ve done is have Steve with the 1s, Kenny with the 2s and CJ with the 3s. And if we only go 1s and 2s with certain parts of practice, Kenny and CJ will rotate a little bit. And that’s probably the plan going forward.
“Right now we know Steve is ahead of the other guys, just through experience, just through the evidence that he’s shown us. And it’s kind of made it simpler for [quarterbacks] coach [Gino] Guidugli to script reps – 1s, 2s and 3s. It’s easy to do that.”
Leonard, a 6-foot-4, 213-pound senior-to-be, suffered the injury originally on Sept. 30 in a 21-14 home loss to the team he’ll suit up for in 2024, Notre Dame. The high ankle sprain caused Leonard to leave the game after a sack by Irish nose guard Howard Cross III. He left the field after the game on crutches.
Leonard has since joked that Cross owes him a dinner.
The Blue Devils had a bye week on Oct. 7, and Leonard missed the next game against NC State on Oct. 14. He then aggravated the injury in a loss to Florida State on Oct. 21, leaving that game early.
The following week he suffered a season-ending turf toe injury in a Duke loss at Louisville. In parts of seven games last season, working around the injuries, Leonard completed 95 of 165 passes for 1,102 yards and three TDs with three interceptions. He also ran for 352 yards on 58 carries with four touchdowns.
In his last healthy season (2022), Leonard completed 250 of 392 passes for 2,967 yards and 20 TDs with six picks. He ran for 699 yards and 13 TDs on 124 carries.
Angeli was a backup for starter Sam Hartman last season at ND, then shined in the starting role in a 40-8 waxing of Oregon State in the Sun Bowl on Dec. 29 after Hartman opted out.
He elected to stay at ND and compete against Leonard instead of entering the transfer portal during the winter window, A 15-day spring window opens in mid-April.
“At some point, we need to name a starting quarterback,” Freeman said. “And not having Riley for spring ball has kind of changed the process of being able to do that. And when we feel like we’re ready to do that — is it fall camp? Is it after spring ball? I don’t know. But what we’ve got to do is we’ve got to continue to look at the body of work and I live competition.
“So, the ability to have a quarterback competition is exciting to me, because it makes everybody better. But I also understand as coach Denbrock and coach Guidugli would say we need the continuity between a quarterback and the offensive line. So, at some point we’ll name one. I just don’t know when that time will be.”
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