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SOUTH BEND — When there were no more mental reps to take on the practice field, no more bonds to build in the locker room, no film to watch in the meeting room, that’s when it was toughest on Notre Dame football quarterback Riley Leonard.
He would find himself often alone, often at night, with nothing but his surgically repaired/healing right ankle and thoughts about where all this was headed. For him. For Notre Dame. For the 2024 college football season.
Leonard knows college football. He knows the pressures and the payoffs, knows the prices paid to play the game. Knows that above everything else, you better have that certain something that might be taken away in an instant – like last September when his right ankle crumpled under the weight of Irish defensive tackle Howard Cross III in the closing seconds of a game.
If you’re a quarterback at this level, you better stay healthy and you better make plays and you better be prepared to show you’re worth all that Name, Image and Likeness money that it cost to get you to Northern Indiana as another one-year rental.
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You also better be confident. In your teammates. In your coaches. In the system. In yourself. That’s a hard sell when you can’t, well, play.
It was for Leonard.
“Being able to get on the field and compete and get your confidence back is a big deal for me,” Leonard said. “Whenever you’re sitting out for so long, you start to have doubts every once in a while.”
Skepticism shadowed Leonard not long after a second surgery to repair the damage Cross did to the ankle last fall when Leonard was the quarterback at Duke and the notion of playing for Notre Dame was nowhere on his radar. Those doubts came calling when Leonard was alone, and never left him…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/qb-transfer-riley-leonard-push-135405454.html
Author : South Bend Tribune
Publish date : 2024-08-15 13:54:05
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