The question that twisted Riley Leonard into largely vacant run-on sentences this week, even more than the one about whether teammate Jeremiyah Love was wearing a knee brace in practice, still eventually coaxed him into a substantive and powerful statement.
Just not one that clearly addressed the original curiosity.
“It was tough for me,” the Notre Dame QB began at a media session in Dania Beach, Fla., ahead of Thursday night’s Orange Bowl in nearby Miami Gardens, when asked about his pursuit of his undergraduate degree after transferring in the middle of his junior academic year at Duke.
“Because when I transferred, a lot of my credits didn’t transfer to Notre Dame, so I don't even know where I'm at right now. My major at Duke was Public Policy, with a minor in Marketing and Management Studies, but a lot of those didn’t transfer, unfortunately, so it's kind of confusing. I'm just a little behind still, which is crazy.”
► Orange Bowl coaches' press conference transcripts from Freeman, Franklin
► Notebook: James Franklin's big-picture takes dominate Orange Bowl presser
► Transcripts: Notre Dame OC Mike Denbrock | Notre Dame DC Al Golden
► Where they were ranked: Breaking down the talent of CFP's final four
► Grandpa's roadmap to redemption for Notre Dame CB Christian Gray
In the questions and answers and moments that followed, as well as the actions of Leonard as 7 seed Notre Dame’s starting quarterback through a tumultuous on-ramp and a 14-game ascent into a glaring spotlight, Leonard persistently shattered the misperception that he is — or ever was — a mercenary.
Instead he came off as a reminder why the Irish players, set to take on 6 seed Penn State (13-2) Thursday night in a College Football Playoff semifinal at Hard Rock Stadium (7:30 EST on ESPN), believed they could carry out the promise they made to themselves about what their ceiling could look like this season.
The seismic changes all around that pursuit, and across college football, leave the aftertaste of the sport turning into something purely transactional. Until you pull back the curtain, and you see the stories and hear the reasons why so many fell in love with Notre Dame football in the first place at some point in the past.
And that they’re still playing out in real time.
It’s not that numbers don’t matter. They do. And the graphic at the bottom of the page illustrates where they support the Irish (13-1) extending their season possibly beyond a game 15 and into the national title game Jan. 20 in Atlanta.
And also where the stress points are.
Using the NCAA’s latest national team rankings among 133 FBS teams, we charted 27 significant ones. And of those 27, ND is either first or last in all but four among the four semifinalists, which include Friday’s Ohio State-Texas matchup in the Cotton Bowl. More specifically, ND is first in 14, last in nine, and second or third, among the contenders, in sacks allowed, red-zone offense, scoring defense and sacks.
But behind the numbers and what makes them come to life are the people and their stories.
Through the eyes of Leonard, former walk-on wide receiver and current two-sport star Jordan Faison and veteran defensive coordinator Al Golden, here’s what the fabric of who and what Notre Dame football is in 2024/2025 as it ambles up to the doorstep of history, knocking hard.
Words Matter
If you haven’t seen or heard about Irish center Pat Coogan’s pregame oratories, you haven’t paid your internet bill. Or you have child-safety filters activated for yourself.
The latest to move the Notre Dame team internally have come from Devyn Ford.
Who’s Devyn Ford?
Notre Dame’s fourth option at running back, who has logged five offensive snaps since the end of October, all five coming in a 52-3 demolition of Florida State on Nov. 9. But he HAS logged 110 special teams snaps over five different units this season.
“We call him 'coach Ford,'” Leonard said of the sixth-year grad. “He's like a coach out there, and he understands his role to a tee. He's a guy who's very trustworthy. So, whenever his number is called, we know he's going to know exactly what to do.
“I understand that he knows everybody's job on all special teams units, and he coaches guys constantly. And I know this is a personal game for him, and I'm excited to go out there and compete with him, because he kind of shared a few thoughts [Tuesday] with the team on this sort of rivalry if you will.”
In 2023, Ford was one of the top-ranked special teams players in the nation, per Pro Football Focus. And once upon a time, actually the 2018 recruiting cycle, he was deemed the No. 40 prospect nationally at any position, per Rivals.
And signed with Penn State out of North Stafford (Va.) High over Notre Dame and many others.
Notre Dame has two players on its roster, two — freshman rotational linebacker Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa (No. 19 in 2024) and freshman backup right offensive tackle Guerby Lambert (No. 37 in 2024) — with better recruiting pedigree. That's it.
Yet in his final year of football at Penn State, Ford was so disillusioned he wasn’t sure he wanted to play a fifth year of football — anywhere — before eventually landing at Notre Dame in the summer of 2023 and being reborn. Not as a star, but as a shining light for his teammates.
That includes unselfishly moving to safety this past spring because of a lack of unproven options, then back to running back when the safety room thrived and the running back room lost Gi’Bran Payne for the season in the Blue-Gold Game.
Ford, in fact, shifted to running back DURING the Blue-Gold Game when Payne suffered a season-canceling knee injury.
“Yeah, he's a role model and a leader, great player as well,” Faison said. “He's a guy you want to go out on the field and play for. He's going to embody and take whatever role that's given to him. Just to make the team better, he'll do it. And he's done that throughout the years he's been here. He’s just a great guy on and off the field.”
And his message?
“Huge,” Faison said. “He felt like he was disrespected by some of the people over there [at Penn State] on that side of the ball. And he kind of felt that different change in being at Notre Dame. But he definitely showed he kind of has a little more edge to this game, and he kind of got the rest of us to feel that same edge with him. So yeah, it was huge.”
The loudest voice, not necessarily in volume but in impact, continues to be Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman’s.
“I think that [Marcus] Freeman always knows exactly what to say and when to say it.” Leonard said. “He shares a lot about his personal life and, more importantly, his mistakes and how he's felt throughout his coaching career.
“Specifically, after the NIU loss, he shared with us stories about his familiar losses in the past. And he's so confident as a person that he's not scared to show vulnerability. And I think that's something that a lot of football coaches, specifically in college, don't have.
“I think that a lot of them shy away from sharing kind of how they feel in front of their players. But that's not coach Freeman. Whether things are going good, things are going bad, he's a reflection of our team. Like, there's nobody that can relate to me more than coach Freeman. And we're just always on the same page. Like before every game, he always hits the nail on the head, and every message is just spot on.”
Humility Matters
And so does being process-driven over outcome-driven, and all those things that ND defensive coordinator Al Golden said Joe Paterno taught him when he was a tight end for the Nittany Lions (1988-91) feel even truer now as a veteran coach who has never been more relevant, but who acts like he has the ego the size of a stray movie extra on the big stage.
“The overarching lesson that has always stayed with me, is that if you take care of the person, the person will become what you want as an athlete,” Golden said this week of Paterno and coaching. “So, whether it's the character development, the community service, be demanding, academically, be disciplined, form great habits, be a team player — all of those things.
“And then if you care about the relationship, if you care about the player as a person, he'll take care of the rest. He'll make the journey to becoming a really, really good football player. So, the athlete part of it is the byproduct of everything else.”
And what about those playing days?
“You're always a way better player decades later than you actually were,” he said with a laugh. “I mean, I was an above-average player in a really good program, and was a leader and a captain. And that's probably one of the greatest honors that has ever been bestowed on me — just being a captain, being voted by your peers.”
Just as Leonard was voted a captain by his peers, a little over six months after setting foot on campus for the first time.
And “aw shucks-ing” it, ever since.
Like this exchange Tuesday at a media session:
[Georgia coach] Kirby Smart said tackling you is like tackling a running back.
“Aw, that was nice,” Leonard said.
What comes to mind when you hear something like that?
“I don't know if his defense would agree with that. I don't know,” Leonard said. “That's a very good compliment to be able to have Kirby Smart say that about me. But I don't know. I don't understand why I'm hard to tackle.
“Honestly, I don't have very good juke moves. I'm very tall, not intimidating, at least not on the field. But guys just miss. I don't really know why. Maybe it's like an ‘angles’ thing or like a deception thing, I don't know, But it's a great compliment, and I'm not scared to tote the rock.”
Or to talk about his faith, and how imperfect that process can sometimes be for Leonard.
“I do share my faith publicly, and I think it's important to know that, like I'm not completed at all in my faith,” he said. “And I’m striving to be a better Christian every single day. And I know that there are things maybe in my past that — you don’t know what you don't know. And I think I've grown a lot.
“This team has helped me grow a lot. I think after NIU [a 16-14 Irish loss on Sept. 7], I was walking in the locker room with my head down and things like that. And I had younger guys come up to me and be like, ‘Dude, you say it's faith, family football, but a football game two days ago is completely affecting your family and your faith. Now, tell me how that works.’
“And that kind of just shook me up a little bit and made me realize, like, ‘Dude, that's hypocritical of me to be emotionally so connected to football that it affects my relationship with Christ.’ And that's one lesson that I've learned.
“And hopefully, I'm just a reflection of Him everywhere I go. I try to just do my best to ask myself, what would He be doing in certain circumstances, and hopefully my teammates can see that, and maybe learn a thing or two. But like I said, I'm just as broken as anybody.”
Where Home Is Matters
Golden is typically cordial and business-like in interviews to the point that he never lets on if he’d rather be doing that for about 10-12 minutes every Tuesday night during the regular season or sitting in a dentist’s chair.
But he doesn’t get close to ever waxing nostalgic, wither, until it was right in his face this week. Even then, he did it on his own terms.
Not only did he have the media peppering him about his Penn State connection, the south Florida contingent was curious about what it was like to be back in Miami, where his head coaching career stalled during a five-year run with the Hurricanes (32-25 from 2011-2015).
Well, it was more like a 4 ½-year run. Golden was a respectable 22-9 in Hard Rock Stadium, then known as Sun Life Stadium, where the Irish will play not only Thursday night, but open the 2025 season there against Golden’s former team.
His ninth loss, a 58-0 meltdown to eventual national runner-up Clemson, at Hard Rock/Sun Life prompted an ugly purge seven games into the 2015 season. Golden has been an assistant coach ever since — in the NFL and now at ND — and has learned to love being one more than ever at Notre Dame.
“When I hired Al Golden three years ago, it was for two reasons,” Freeman said Wednesday. “One, I believed he had a great defensive mind and could do great things with our defense. But two, at that point we did not have a former head coach on our staff. And I thought it was important to get somebody that had experience where I had none on our staff.
“The growth we've made in three years has been tremendous, the growth of our defense. And our defense is doing really great things right now, and coach Golden gets all the credit, and that staff and the players. But there's times I have to — I'll ask him things about his experiences.
“And at some point you've got to make a decision of what you believe is best. But it's good to have some of those guys that have experience in areas that you don't.”
And now Golden is back where he got a lot of that head coaching experience, and some of it the painful kind.
“It's just a great opportunity,” Golden framed the homecoming. “I don't look at it like — you look over at Penn State. There's a reason why they won so many games. So, there's not a lot of time to reminisce. We've got to be focused, and we're here on a business trip. But it's great, just getting a couple texts from people, just families you know.
“My kids were in Little League here. Just families that you haven't seen in a while, and my neighbor, my next-door neighbor, just little things like that. You always take the positive out of your journey. And that's the thing, that's the greatest part about being back is just hopefully being able to see some of those people before.”
And how it all looks different in a brand new frame.
“I learned a lot,” Golden said, “but the most important thing probably was just to continue to journey, continue to be you. And I've been blessed. Went to the playoffs with Detroit [Lions], went to a Super Bowl with Cincinnati [Bengals], and now we're in the Final Four with Notre Dame. So, it was 30 years since Cincinnati was in a Super Bowl, so maybe that's a good omen for Notre Dame.”
Good omens or not, happily-ever-afters or not, Leonard cherishes what came after his decision to pop out of the transfer portal in South Bend, Ind.
“To be able to be a part of a Notre Dame football team, no matter what the circumstances are, is already a privilege,” he said. “It's such an honor for me to sit here today and be able to represent this school and this university, because it is just different.
“It's hard to describe until you're really sitting at the table, but the school is different to represent and to be a part of. And then to be 13-1 and sitting at the Orange Bowl in the semifinals of the College Football Playoff is — you can't even describe it. It all kind of feels like a dream right now.
“And I'm just hoping I don't take it for granted and that I can live in the moment, because obviously it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and it's very special to be a part of.”
Meanwhile, Faison went to high school just 23 miles from Hard Rock Stadium, at Pine Crest in Fort Lauderdale. To be back in South Florida and chasing a second national title in less than a year — he helped lead the Irish men’s lacrosse team to a championship last spring — is like stepping into a dream.
But he loves where his reality lives now.
“From our practice field, we have a view of Touchdown Jesus,” he said. “And you get in your head about being where you're at, and you kind of overlook where you're at, what you're doing.
“But sometimes during practice, I kind of look up to see that, and realize the journey — how far I’ve come, how far all the guys around me have come. And to be doing it at Notre Dame, it just shows how great this is.”
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