What Notre Dame QB Riley Leonard said on Gojo and Golic

On Monday, Notre Dame senior quarterback Riley Leonard joined the GoJo and Golic show with former Fighting Irish offensive linemen Mike Golic Jr. and Mike Golic. Here is everything Leonard said during an about 15-minute interview. Quotes have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

On the feeling when they learned Indiana was Notre Dame’s opponent

“It was great. I mean, everybody on our team thinks that they can predict the future. So, I had about 50 possibilities pitched to me before the announcement.

“And then we sit in there, and then you hear the sports people talk about it for another 15 minutes. I’m like, ‘Dude, just tell us who we got.’ We’re ready to go. (When we) I discovered it was Indiana — what more can you ask for?

“Everybody is talking about, alright, it’s a football state now, and we’re ready to roll. I think the ticket prices are about $1,200 minimum. It’s crazy.”

On how coach Marcus Freeman used the NIU loss to keep the team focused

“We’ve said it a lot, but I mean, when I tell you he brings it up before every game, just to piss us off a little bit, he does. It’s crazy. Every single game, he always tells us to keep the pain and reminds me of that game and the rest of the team, and we use that as fuel to the fire.

“I mean, shoot, that’s like 90-plus days ago, and we’re still using it as motivation. So I think it’s pretty cool that nobody’s shying away from the fact that we lost that game. We’ve taken it with open arms.

“After that game, we met on Sunday, and he told me, ‘One day you’re gonna be thankful for this.’ And I sat there and was like, ‘Bro, I’m never gonna be thankful for this.’ It felt terrible. In hindsight, now, maybe he’s right. But, yeah, it’s been a long time coming since then.”

On when he began to feel fully comfortable with the offense

“Yeah, it’s a good question. I mean, that process takes time. Whenever I gain my confidence, I think the coaches really showed me how much they’ve believed in me.

“I’m a guy who probably needs that a little bit. Whenever me and (offensive coordinator Mike) Denbrock started meeting regularly, I understood him, and he understood me a little more and the plays I liked.

“They started coming to me, ‘Hey, what did you guys run at Duke? And what did you used to like? And what do you like? What do you not like?’ (They) started to consider my input when talking about the game plan.

“So I just gained confidence in that. I always say this, but I’ve had more practices in this offense post-NIU than I had before, including fall camp, spring ball or any years in the past, obviously. So every week, it’s just like more and more reps, (which) helps a lot.”

On the Notre Dame offensive line

“These guys up front here, it is something special. They move like a little mini, military-based, and have a military base culture. That probably doesn’t make sense to anybody, but if one guy’s watching film, everybody’s in there watching film, nobody’s on their phones, it is straight business.

“These guys are yelling at each other in practice. You got backups yelling at starters in practice to get right, and vice versa. These dudes — it’s just incredible. Even on the weekends, if you see one of them, you will see 15. Like, that’s just what they do. Everywhere they go, they go in the unit.

“They just have such a great culture. They’re hard-headed, but did they block their tails off.”

On what impresses him most about sophomore running back Jeremiyah Love

“This is a kid who doesn’t say too much, right? You go to practice, and he does what he does. He’ll do the most random things. We’ll just be standing there in practice, watching the twos go, and he’ll just hit a back flip, just because that’s just what he does.

“You see that in the game, and you’re like, ‘Dude, what? Where did that (come from)?’ It’s just natural for him. It’s hard to explain, but he’s a hard worker, and everybody on the team loves and respects him. He’s got a great future ahead of him.”

On how many games it took after the NIU loss to find their identity

“Yeah, that’s a good question. I think it probably took a little bit of time. We came out after NIU and shoot, I was so nervous after that game playing Purdue. Because I was like, ‘Bro, if I don’t play good this game, like, oh gosh.’ We ended up going out with a hot start and dominating against them.

“But I think it took some time for us to play — probably Louisville, a good opponent against Louisville — to really understand our potential. We left a lot of things out on the field against Louisville, too. But to play them and win that game was a good confidence boost.”

On his impression of how Freeman leads Notre Dame and where the Irish fit in the college football landscape

“I’ll start with Coach Freeman. This dude knows every person’s name in the facility and truly cares about everybody. I’m talking about the janitor’s names. He’s going to treat everybody like they’re the starting quarterback.

“There’s a verse in the Bible that I heard, “Treat me as you treat the least of us.” Talking about how you treat Jesus. I think that Coach Freeman treats everybody with so much respect, and he knows them on a personal level. That culture stems from the top down.

“I think our captains have done a great job respecting everybody because we see it daily in Coach Freeman.

“Then, oh, another Coach Freeman story. I remember being recruited, and I wasn’t even committed at this point, but I sent him a two-hour podcast about Tom Brady. And three hours later, he said, ‘I just watched the whole thing, call me when you can, so we can talk about it. I wasn’t even committed at this point. That’s just the type of person he is.

“Then, to come to Notre Dame, like, if you drive two hours in any direction from here, you’re going to see a Notre Dame flag on their front porch. That’s something that, you know, I’m not exactly used to, right?

“Being at Duke, you got UNC 10 minutes down the road, NC State, 20 minutes down the road. Here, it’s just straight Notre Dame football in any direction. I love that. I mean, we go to Chicago, shoot, you know you’re going to see a bunch of Notre Dame fans there. We went to New York City, and we were getting stopped. So it’s a special place.”

On the best advice he received about being a Notre Dame quarterback

“Well, everybody talks about being a transfer into Notre Dame, and I know everybody likes the kid that was here from freshman year, right? But, I mean, I tell people like, I would have been here this whole time if they offered me, or they even reached out to me. I’d have been here on the spot if somebody had reached out to me if I was a high school kid.

“But the best advice I got from here is probably living with no regrets. Living with no regrets and knowing who you play for. Whenever you realize who you play for, and I always remind myself, obviously Number One, Jesus Christ. But with the people in this locker room, that dials it down.

“It’s like, ‘Oh, I’m playing for these guys who I love and care about so much, and they respect me so much as a person.’ It doesn’t even matter what my performance is on the field. It takes a lot of stress off of you. So that’s probably the best advice that I’ve gotten.

“Live with no regrets — let it fly. Because at the end of the day, you’re only here for a year, so your time will pass anyway.”

On what he knows about Indiana

“(They’re a) really good team. I think they’re well-coached and know what to do and when. They’re starting to understand how to do things and why, and it seems to be on film.

“They’re mixing up coverages in the back end. They run their main stuff but get to it in many different ways, which can sometimes be tricky. So I don’t want to get into it too much, but they’re well-coached and a good football team.”

On how he recovers

“I think this past week was extremely important for us. Everybody says, ‘We don’t have a bye.’ We just had it last week, not playing in a conference championship.

“There are a lot of different recovery methods that I use, but I feel like Icy Hot has helped me out a lot. I personally use their lidocaine pain relief patch. So, you pretty much just put it on, and they have cool ones that’ll help cool you down. So I put them on both my elbows, which stay in place. I pretty much wear them throughout the day because I take a lot of hits. So my elbows busted up last week, but after one or two days of wearing them, they helped me out a lot.

“So that’s probably the most effective way I found to recover after a game. But there are a lot of different ways.”

On his grandfather’s ‘Buy a Brick‘ foundation

“Thank you for asking that. Obviously, (could) talk about this for hours, but around 20-plus years ago, he went to Zimbabwe, Africa, and started building schools. So he’s built over 40 school blocks at this point. Multiple, multiple, multiple community gardens.

“He’s big on teaching a man to fish instead of giving a man a fish. So, a lot of the stuff he does over there teaches them how to build sustainable communities, right? He’s done a great job of that. I mean, he takes, I don’t know, probably rough estimate, 80% of his income, and he pours it all into Zimbabwe, Africa, and that’s pretty much his life.

“He goes over there for six months out of every year. I think the only thing keeping him in the States is me playing football. So whenever I’m done with that, hopefully, a long time, I think he’ll move over there full time.

“He grinds his tail off, man. Feeding — they got up to about 20,000 kids a day at one point with the drought in Zimbabwe; right now, it’s hard to do that. So they’re trying to build wells as well. So they’re doing great work over there, and I’m very proud of him.”