SOUTH BEND, Ind. — It’s clear that Riley Leonard knows what improvement should look like in the days ahead, and an even better sign for No. 10 Notre Dame that its quarterback didn’t feel that was an irrelevant talking point, given what the scoreboard said Saturday night.
Historically speaking, the 52-3 gutting of a Florida State team, whose preseason Top 10 ranking has become too unfunny to pass for a punchline anymore, matches the most lopsided bumfuzzling since the school took up football on a permanent basis in 1902.
Among the extremes the Irish (8-1) imposed Saturday in prime time at Notre Dame Stadium on a team they’ve now beaten in the last four meetings and scored a minimum of 41 points in all of them, the most impressive were defensive feats.
Like holding an admittedly tepid Seminoles passing attack to a season-low 88 yards and a 38% completion rate. Or a 3-of-17 third-down conversion rate. Or saddling FSU with a season-high eight sacks — three by grad senior Rylie Mills.
“Oh, it's awful,” Leonard said with a big smile when asked what it’s like on the few occasions ND goes 1s vs. 1s in practice and Mills is staring him down. “Our guys do a good job protecting me, first and foremost. But he's a guy, I mean, just look at him. He's a freak.
“And just his presence alone will make you tap your feet a little more in the pocket and get a little antsy. But, I mean, for him to have that performance today, I usually don't watch the defense, but you couldn't help but like look up at the JumboTron every five minutes.”
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It’s not that Leonard’s own numbers were pedestrian or un-JumboTron worth on Saturday, coming off his best-ever game rating from Pro Football Focus in a 51-14 rout of Navy on Oct. 26 followed by a bye week. But even Leonard felt the coulda/shouldas.
“I remember walking off the field, like there was just so much left out there for me in the passing game, specifically,” he said. “I think I'm going where I'm supposed to go with the ball the majority of the time.
“Sometimes just get a little ignorant and greedy here or there — like just take what defense gives you. And that's something that I'm still getting better at.”
And while it may deduct points from the eye test that the College Football Playoff selection committee has to lean hard into given the dearth of truly comparative data points, perhaps being a complementary piece to a defense-driven team is enough?
Against a Florida State team that came in ranked 92nd nationally out of 133 in pass-efficiency defense and 96th in total defense, Leonard threw for his second-highest passing total of the season — 215 yards (backup Steve Angeli added 37more) — while completing 14 of 27 attempts with one TD and no interceptions.
On the ground, he was elite and probably largely unappreciated. Leonard came into the game ranked first among Power 4 QBs in rushing yards per carry (6.3), rushing yards per game (67.4) and second to Alabama’s Jalen Milroe in rushing TDs (11).
He hit those marks against the Seminoles, with 70 yards on 11 carries (6.4 average) and two TDs, the latter stat leaving him one short of Brandon Wimbush’s single-season school record for QBs.
“I just kind of run until they tackle me,” Leonard said when asked to be taken through the longer of the two TD runs, a 34-yard weave through traffic.
He quickly adjusted his answer to include good blocking. Quick thinking.
But the thing that gives Leonard the best chance to improve in the passing game is he stopped thinking TOO much. He took pressure off. He understands progress isn’t always a straight line, but he’s committed to it. And so it third-year head coach Marcus Freeman, whose postgame press conferences are tending to revert to familiar themes.
“The sign of a great team is consistency,” he said. “We all can have good plays and bad plays, and good days and bad days, and good games and bad games. But the sign of great teams and great organizations is consistency.
“I challenged them a little bit at halftime — let’s be consistent. That's who you really are, right? It's not what you do on one day versus what you — who you are is who you are consistently, and that's in all walks of life.”
On Sunday, the Irish will get to see who the AP and coaches polls think they are. And more consequentially, they’ll get to see if they made any points with the CFP committee, when it released its second Top 25.
Two teams ranked ahead of the Irish, Georgia and Miami, lost on Saturday. A third, unbeaten BYU, nearly did.
“You've got to enjoy this feeling tonight, but you've got to go back tomorrow with a clear mind and a conscience of trying to improve,” Freeman said. “You've got to try improve, and you can't let the feeling of winning a game like this cloud your vision when you really dissect the film.
“So we'll dive into it, we'll find ways to improve, and we'll attack it in practice.”
In dissecting the film, Freeman and the Irish will likely see more encouraging than discouraging.
Like backup D-lineman Donovan Hinish’s five tackles and career-high two sacks after starter Howard Cross III left the game with an ankle sprain.
They’ll see a season-high six catches for 55 yards — three for third-down conversions — by sophomore wide receiver Jaden Greathouse, a game-high 95 rushing rushing yards on seven carries with a TD from No. 2 running back Jadarian Price, two tackles and a pick-6 by backup safety Luke Talich, the first two tackles of freshman cornerback Tae Johnson’s career and the first for freshman nose guard Sean Sevillano Jr.
And kicker Mitch Jeter back in action, even if he did miss one of his two field goal attempts.
And in Tuesday’s practice Freeman wants to see it all again — but better. And even better when Virginia (5-4) comes to town Saturday for a Senior Day clash.
That’s the heartening takeaway from Freeman’s fifth post-bye-week win in five tries. It wasn’t to what extent they demoralized a reeling Florida State program. It’s about where they can still take this one, this season.
“I think it's an understanding that you don't get better doing the same thing you have previously done,” Freeman said. “That's what I drive home to our players, but also to our captains. We can't go out and just reciprocate next week what we did this week. Our natural gravitational pull is going to make you worse.
“So, they put a whole bunch of work in this week, and the first thing I'm going to say to them in the meeting on Monday is, ‘We have got to elevate.’ Sometimes that's frustrating. That's frustrating to me, as a coach, when you feel like you've put everything into it, and you know in order to get better, you've got to do more.”
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