Notre Dame football: Marcus Freeman's Riley Leonard comments spark controversy

Why is Notre Dame football back here again? What happened after an abysmal loss under Marcus Freeman isn’t going to crystallize for a while yet. However, some comments the head coach made before their loss to Northern Illinois have drawn scrutiny in the wake of the massive upset.

Considering that Riley Leonard has - quite frankly - looked awful behind center this year, people are looking for why exactly that is. Were his problems simply hidden by the way Duke played? Is he having problems adjusting to the Fighting Irish offense?

Is it that sitting out spring practice and taking it easy this summer hampered the Notre Dame football quarterback more than the program and signal caller let on? Or are the coaches going out of their way to put shackles on their big NIL pickup?

That last one suddenly seems uncomfortably plausible after people started rewatching the pre-game show from Saturday’s abomination on Peacock. Chiefly, former Irish captain Mike Goolsby picked out comments from Freeman that seemed counter intuitive to what Riley Leonard does and who he is.

Notre Dame football head coach’s Riley Leonard comments under fire

Among the comments he made that have Irish fans riled up are that Freeman said he wanted Leonard to “play within the offense” and “do exactly what your coaches tell you to do” and finally, “don’t try to do anything spectacular.”

The question that is occurring to quite a few fans of the Blue and Gold, including myself, is why are you recruiting someone like Riley Leonard if you’re looking for a “system quarterback?”

That’s not really what the Duke transfer is. He’s never going to be that. And he wasn’t before.

Leonard’s value comes from his ability to improvise. He doesn’t have the arm strength to sit in the pocket and bomb the ball 50 yards. It’s worth noting it doesn’t appear he’s very comfortable in the pocket either. 

It’s worth noting that the Notre Dame football team’s top 2025 quarterback recruit, Deuce Knight doesn’t really project as a guy who will “play within the system” either. Improvisation is both of these quarterbacks’ most important skill.

Perhaps that’s the real reason that Knight appears all but gone. Maybe he’s being told these things by Freeman and deciding Notre Dame football might not really be the fit for him after all.

For now, this is all just conjecture. We still don’t really know what the cause of the offensive struggles are yet. What’s clear is that Notre Dame football is struggling mightily, and those pre-game comments from Freeman shouldn’t make anyone feel comfortable.