There was something auspicious in the way Notre Dame quarterback Riley Leonard was coaxed postgame Saturday to put a redemptive frame around what he has become and instead nudged the narrative toward the possibilities and the work ahead.
And for the first time since the pandemic-contorted 2020 season, there is truly something momentous for the Irish football program to play for beyond November, and also that doesn’t involve a tie-in to sugary breakfast fare.
Not that it isn’t sweet.
And maybe the least-obvious benevolent thread in the 49-35 subduing of arch-rival USC Saturday in Los Angeles to launch No. 5 ND (11-1) into the first-ever 12-team version of the College Football Playoff was the angst-filled moments for the Irish in the fourth quarter, and really throughout the game.
And how they handled them at the LA Memorial Coliseum in front of a crowd of 73,241.
By crushing them.
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It’s exactly what a team with the second-longest active win streak (10 games) needed to experience heading into a Dec. 20/21 first-round playoff opener — presumably at Notre Dame Stadium — despite the perpetual pressure of having essentially been playing elimination games since a Sept. 7 upset loss at home to Northern Illinois.
And it needed to face a quarterback, like USC sophomore Jayden Maiava, who’s fearless about throwing the ball downfield on the team that came in ranked No. 1 nationally in pass-efficiency defense. And a team that could throw skill players in waves against what was the No. 2 scoring defense in the FBS.
And that had enough transfer portal finds and enough of a schematic makeover on defense to play within seven points of all 11 of its previous opponents, including taking Penn State to overtime in mid-October.
In the highest-scoring rendition of the 95 games ND and USC (6-6) have been played in their annual cross-country grudge match, the Irish leaned heavily into what they took a leap of faith with on Sept. 8, the morning after the world seemed to end for those on the outside looking in.
“Everybody wants to talk about culture in college football,” Leonard said. “Everybody wants to claim they have a great football culture. I think this place is different. It starts with the very top. You’ve got a guy like [head] coach [Marcus] Freeman, who walks into the facility every single day, and he knows every person’s name.
“And he told me he asks himself: ‘What do I need to do today? Who do I need to be to elevate this program?’ He asks himself that every single day. And it’s very clear that he is the perfect fit for this program.
“He’s a great leader of these young men. And everybody on his team has each other’s back, and it starts with the top, down.”
And it courses through every corpuscle now, it seems.
How else to explain how an Irish defense that seemingly finally had its code cracked with USC driving for the tying score late in the fourth quarter, only to turn that threat away by a school-record-tying 99-yard interception return for a TD by a heretofore struggling Irish sophomore cornerback Christian Gray?
And then roughly two minutes later, at the 1:18 mark, All-America safety Xavier Watts breaks that record with a 100-yard pick-6 before the Trojans added a cosmetic score with 13 seconds left to knock the 21-point margin back down to 14.
In the six USC possessions that preceded that late score, USC cashed in a short-field opportunity on one of them, but the other five ended with two punts, a turnover on downs — defended by Watts — and the two pick-6s.
“It’s amazing,” Leonard said of the defensive closeout. “I’m their biggest fan, obviously. Every time they step in the field, I’m sure you all have confidence in them. I’ve got extreme confidence in them, because I’m the one who had to play against them all fall camp. It was just a nightmare, so man, it was incredible. Those guys are amazing.”
But it might not have been enough had Leonard not kept evolving into the player Freeman and offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock believed he could become when they fished him out of the transfer portal last winter.
For his part, Leonard completed 17 of 22 passes for 155 yards and TDs to eight ends Mitchell Evans and Eli Raridon. He also ran for 50 yards on 12 carries and scored his 14th rushing TD of the season, powering his way into the end zone and tying Brandon Wimbush’s single-season school record.
He finishes the regular season with the third-best single-season completion percentage in school history (.662).
“He’s special,” Freeman said of Leonard. “From the beginning, from the time he got here, I’ve known he’s special. What he had to learn is how to handle the highs and the lows of what being the quarterback at Notre Dame entails.
“You hear me say it all the time: There’s no difference between the head coach and quarterback at Notre Dame. He experienced the highs and the lows within the first two weeks of the season, and he continued to battle. He continued to prepare. I knew from the beginning he was the right quarterback to lead this program.”
Leonard did throw an interception, just his fifth of the season and third since throwing a pair in the 16-14 loss to the Huskies in week 2.
“Somebody on the sidelines said [USC’s John Humphrey] had enough time to fair-catch it,” the self-deprecating Leonard said. “Yeah, I’ve got to work on that. I take a lot of pride in protecting the football. That can’t happen.
“In terms of response, it’s what coach Freeman talks about all the time: ‘Reload. Reload. Reload. Win the interval, reload. Win the interval, reload.’”
The Irish defense forced a four-and-out. Leonard handed off twice, then his next pass was a 23–yard TD strike to Evans, who had a season-high five receptions. That's included a 23-yard catch-and-run from walk-on wide receiver/scout-team QB Tyler Buchner.
“It was 84 days that we lost against NIU,” Leonard offered. “And I kind of told myself, ‘We can win. We can lose, but I’ll never walk off the field with any regret anymore.’ And I feel like regret comes from missed opportunities, not failed opportunities.
“I feel like I missed opportunities earlier in the season that left me with regret. Like I didn’t throw this ball or I wasn’t this confident or I checked out of this play, because I didn’t like it as much. Now, whether we win or lose this game, I leave with no regrets. I let the ball fly a little bit. So, yeah. 84 days. It’s crazy.”
Jeremiyah Love was on his way to a monster game when he left the game midway through the third quarter with an undisclosed injury that wasn’t asked about in Freeman’s postgame press conference.
The sophomore still managed to amass 99 yards on 13 carries and scored a TD for the 12th consecutive game, breaking Wayne Bullock’s 50-year-old school record. Love also had three catches for 38 yards.
Junior Jadarian Price, picked up where Love left off and ran for a career-high 111 yards and a TD on 12 carries. As a team, the Irish averaged 6.8 yards and are on a trajectory to break the single-season school record for yards per carry (6.3).
“Before the game the challenge was we have to win this game at the line of scrimmage,’ Freeman said. “We have to win this game up front and recognize some of the different pressures that they bring defensively. I thought our offensive linemen did a great job at recognizing and really communicating and executing.
“They played a physical, physical affair up front. They kept coming off the field saying, ‘Keep running, Coach. Keep running.’ That’s a confident group that played extremely well today.”
The Irish do have issues to clean up and address. Some of them will be helped by All-American nose guard Howard Cross III (ankle) eventually returning to the lineup and by getting kicker Mitch Jeter healthy and confident.
Though the South Carolina grad transfer nailed all seven PATs on Saturday, his second-quarter miss of a 27-yard field goal in the first half makes the Irish — between Jeter and walk-ons Zac Yoakam and Marcello Diomede — a collective 3-for-11 since Jeter suffered a hip injury against Stanford on Oct. 12.
The little-picture issues can wait. The Irish will get a progress report on the one that matters Tuesday night, when the College Football Playoff Selection Committee issues its penultimate rankings. The final set comes out Sunday, Dec. 8, as does the 12-team bracket and whoever will take ND’s spot it refused to play down to in the Pop-Tarts Bowl.
The Irish figure to be at least No. 4 on Tuesday, and ultimately a 5 or 6 seed in the tournament, with the top four spots reserved for conference champs.
“I’ve known from the start of training camp that we had a chance to have a special program,” said Freeman, who has now won 80% of his November games, highest win rate since Ara Parseghian (1964-74). “But it’s a process. You’ve gotta build it. We had to go through the highest of highs to the lowest of lows in the first two weeks of the season, but they continued to just prepare, and they chose to put the work in and not feel bad about themselves.
“They believed in themselves too. I’ve known this team has been a really good team. I told you guys earlier that it was the most talented roster I’ve had since I’ve been here. But we had to become a good team. Roster talent is one thing. We’ve developed to a good team.”
And the Irish have played themselves into an opportunity that in three weeks they begin to find out how good.
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