Notre Dame has had a trend for most of this decade of bringing in transfer upperclassmen to be the quarterback for the upcoming season. That will happen again in 2024 with former Duke quarterback [autotag]Riley Leonard[/autotag]. All indications are that he will have a fine season for the Irish, and we just got one more of those.
Leonard is one of 63 quarterbacks who has been named to the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award Watch List. This award is given to the best upperclassmen quarterback in college football. Leonard getting the hardware would make it the third such instance for an Irish quarterback, joining [autotag]Tony Rice[/autotag] in 1989 and [autotag]Brady Quinn[/autotag] in 2006.
Leonard also has been named to the watch list for the Maxwell Award, which is given to college football’s best player and has been won by Irish players seven times. Simply put, he will be counted on heavily in 2024, so we’ll see how well he deals with that pressure.
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