It's hard to think of a recent Notre Dame football player who has had a bigger 12 months than Riley Leonard. He took the Fighting Irish to the National Championship game. He was drafted by the Indianapolis Colts and appears to be within shouting distance of winning the starting job. Now he's engaged.
Leonard has indeed had a whirlwind 18 months. He transferred to Notre Dame for his final season in college. He almost immediately heard calls to bench him after early-season struggles. Eventually, he was able to turn things around and grow into a real leader of the team. He literally left everything on the field in the College Football Playoffs.
Notre Dame football quarterback Riley Leonard announces engagement after standout season
Now he's starting his professional career after being considered a long shot to get drafted. And he'll be starting a family before too long as well, now that he's engaged to long-time girlfriend Molly Walding.
Riley Leonard, who took Notre Dame to the national championship in 2024 along with being drafted by the Colts earlier this year, is now engaged.
— Luciano Antonini (@LucciAntonini) July 9, 2025
Sources (Riley’s Instagram story) report that Leonard accidentally jammed Molly’s ring finger while throwing the football around. The… pic.twitter.com/N6htEkk0Ro
Walding and Leonard have been dating since well back in his Duke days and managed to keep things going through all the twists and turns that the Notre Dame football quarterback went through.
On his Instagram stories, he shared that after a game of throwing the football around where Molly jammed one of her fingers, he tried to take the pain away and proposed. Molly said yes, and as an added bonus, the engagement ring still fit despite the football mishap.
Luciano Antonini of the Irish Tribune was one of the first to help spread the word of the happy announcement coming from the Notre Dame football star and Walding as they get set to start the next phase of both their lives.