With just one more victory, Riley Leonard will achieve immortality within one of more storied college football programs in America.

Leonard, a senior from Fairhope, will quarterback Notre Dame (14-1) vs. Ohio State (13-2) in the College Football Playoff National Championship game on Monday night in Atlanta. Though the Fighting Irish have 11 national titles and more than 950 victories in their history, they have not won the sport’s biggest prize since 1988, some 15 years before the 22-year-old Leonard was born.

“Obviously it would mean the world to me,” Leonard said. “It’s kind of something I’ve dreamed of my whole life. To be at a school like this and be able to represent a school like this and (possibly) lead them to a national championship, it’s truly an honor and something I don’t take for granted.

“I take a lot of pride in wearing the blue and gold. I know our fans for a very long time have been very loyal to this program, through the ups and downs since 1988. It would be an honor to deliver them another one.”

A true two-sport star in high school

However, it wasn’t that long ago that Leonard was a lightly recruited two-sport athlete at Fairhope High School, struggling with the decision as to whether he should play football or basketball at the college level. Despite being named Class 7A player of the year in Alabama in basketball as a senior in 2021, he received only small-college scholarship offers in that sport.

College football programs weren’t exactly beating down Leonard’s door, either. A 3-star prospect according to 247 Sports, the 6-foot-4 Leonard had offers from four power-conference programs — Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, Nebraska and Duke.

The COVID pandemic was at its height during the spring and summer of Leonard’s junior year, typically the time when prospects begin setting up official visits and attending camps. Duke head coach David Cutcliffe learned about Leonard through David Morris, Leonard’s private quarterback coach at Mobile’s QB Country and the backup quarterback at Ole Miss when Cutcliffe was head coach of the Rebels in the late 1990s.

“I saw basketball highlights actually even before I watched football,” said Cutcliffe, now retired from coaching and working in the SEC office. “… David told me, he said, ‘look at these basketball highlights, just to see first what kind of athlete we’re talking about.’ And I was blown away. I knew he didn’t have a lot of reps at quarterback at that point, but I fell in love with him. …

“I told the staff, ‘I think this guy’s special.’ We couldn’t even have visits on campus during that time, that we could host (recruits) and talk with them face-to-face. But it was just a thing of beauty, just the right people that fit our value system and we fit theirs and it worked out perfectly.”

Morris, who backed up fellow Cutcliffe disciple Eli Manning during his time at Ole Miss, has become something of a quarterback guru in the Southeast and beyond in the last several years. He’s worked with the likes of AJ McCarron, Daniel Jones, Nick Mullens, Mac Jones, Gardner Minshew, Sam Howell and Deuce Knight, either during their high school and college days (and often even earlier) or when they begin preparing for the NFL draft.

Leonard began training with Morris when he was in the fourth grade. He said Leonard has improved as a quarterback steadily over the years through repetition, particularly after he gave up competitive basketball to focus on football.

“I’m so proud of him,” Morris said. “Just thinking back on him over the years, I would say one of his best attributes is his competitiveness, but also his toughness and his ability to overcome tough times and adversity.

“He’s a freak (athlete). It’s one thing to be talented, but it’s another thing to kind of have the heart to match that talent. When you get somebody special, he has big talent and athleticism and big heart and competitiveness. I think that’s what makes him such a such an incredible athlete, the combination.”

Triumph and adversity at Duke

Leonard played in seven games as a true freshman at Duke, primarily backing up senior Gunnar Holmberg but also starting one late-season game vs. Virginia Tech. The 2021 season happened to be the last with the Blue Devils for Cutcliffe, who stepped down after at the end of the year and retired from coaching.

Leonard enjoyed a breakout 2022 season under head coach Mike Elko and offensive coordinator Kevin Johns, starting every game and passing for 2,967 yards and 20 touchdowns while rushing for 699 yards and 13 scores. His 2023 season began with a shocking 28-7 upset of perennial ACC power Clemson, but ended after just seven games due to shoulder and toe injuries.

“I don’t like to use the term ‘regrets,’ because I don’t have regrets,” Cutcliffe said. “But I certainly would have enjoyed coaching Riley all the way through a college career. … I used to ask youngsters all the time, ‘what do you throw a football with?’ They’ll say arm or they’ll say different things. You should know it’s with your fingers. That’s the last thing to touch the ball. And I thought (Leonard) had terrific fingers.

“I didn’t like everything about the motion, but that could be quickly addressed and we addressed that his freshman year. It was crazy how he just took off and got better and better and better. And I think Kevin Johns did a good job with him after we left, but I don’t think anybody really trains a quarterback fundamentally like we can. And I would have loved to have seen what would have happened over a four-year span.”

Elko left after the 2023 season to become head coach at Texas A&M, and Leonard entered the NCAA transfer portal three days later. Unlike when he was coming out of high school, he was highly coveted by a number of top programs with openings behind center.

Nevertheless, Leonard didn’t have to think very long about where he wanted to go. He’d grown up a fan of Notre Dame — his great-grandfather, James Curran, played for the Fighting Irish in the 1940s — and committed in mid-December.

“It was really a weird feeling because I think of myself as a loyal person, then there I am in the transfer portal leaving my best friends at Duke,” Leonard said. “So I kind of just wanted to get out of it as soon as possible, and I was very quick to commit to Notre Dame because I knew it was the place for me.

“… Obviously, Duke was a great program and everything, but there were just different expectations whenever you transfer to a big-time school like this, and I’ve learned a lot throughout the last year for sure.”

A rocky start in South Bend, but a fantastic finish

Notre Dame opened the 2024 season with a 23-13 road victory over Texas A&M (and Elko, Leonard’s old coach) before hitting the rocks in Week 2 with a 16-14 home loss to Northern Illinois. Leonard threw two interceptions in that game, which nearly derailed the Fighting Irish’s national title dreams.

However, Notre Dame has since reeled off 13 straight victories, including playoff wins over Indiana, Georgia and Penn State. Leonard has also enjoyed a bounce-back season, with 2,606 yards and 19 touchdowns passing, with 866 yards and 16 scores rushing.

“It doesn’t surprise me,” Morris said. “But after Week 2, it was hard to imagine this is where they would be because, one slip-up, you’re out of the (championship race).

“It tells you a lot about how he’s built and how the leadership on that team is built. … These reps stack and multiply and the muscle memory — it matters. … For him miss spring, miss summer, he’s a lot more fluid and natural and in-sync now than he was in Weeks 1-thru-4, just because of the repetition of playing the position.”

Leonard’s toughest challenge of late came during the 27-24 victory over Penn State in the Orange Bowl on Jan. 9, when he was temporarily knocked from the game in the second quarter while being evaluated for a concussion. But he returned in the second half to both run and throw for a touchdown, including a 54-yard pass to Jaden Greathouse that tied the game in the fourth quarter before Mitch Jeter’s 41-yard field goal won it in the final seconds.

Leonard threw two interceptions in the first half, but finished with 223 yards passing and 35 hard-fought rushing yards. Throughout the season, Leonard has come to be admired by his teammates for his toughness, running back Aneyas Williams said.

“Just knowing that your quarterback has your back, has the team’s back like that, I mean, it just pushes your team to another level of obviously, one, respect for him, and then just knowing that even our quarterback had his body on the line for this team,” Williams said. “There’s not much that we wouldn’t do for him, but just knowing that he would do anything for us, that’s what makes this team.”

Notre Dame faces arguably its most-daunting opponent yet in Ohio State, which is loaded with future first-round picks on both sides of the ball. The Buckeyes are an 8-to-9.5-point favorite to win the national title, according to various oddsmakers.

Ohio State is 6-0 all-time vs. Notre Dame, including regular-season victories in 2022 (21-10 in Columbus) and 2023 (17-14 in South Bend). Leonard obviously wasn’t part of either of those games, but said Fighting Irish coach Marcus Freeman hasn’t felt the need to bring them up to the veteran players on the team.

“He doesn’t really have to mention the Ohio State loss to give you any extra motivation because it’s the national championship, so if you’re not motivated enough, you’re tripping,” Leonard said. “He doesn’t really need to bring up their losses the past two years. He’s playing (video of) it around the facility so we understand the pain, but if you need any extra motivation for this game, there’s something up with you.”

There’s no place like home

Win or lose on Monday, Leonard will be back on the Alabama coast later this month, as he’s committed to play in the 2025 Reese’s Senior Bowl in Mobile on Feb. 1. Though he’s put plenty on tape this season already, it will be one more chance to show professional scouts that he has what it takes to succeed at the next level.

And proving doubters wrong is nothing new to Riley Leonard. It’s something his team has done all year, and something he’s been doing since he left Fairhope.

“I think the one group of people that did believe in me throughout my entire college career was Fairhope and all the families back home,” Leonard said. “I think that’s because they don’t really see me as a quarterback. They kind of just see me as who I am as a person and they’re going to have my back no matter what.

“It’s crazy to think that we’re here now, but I’m very grateful to be in these shoes and represent Fairhope, Alabama, where I come from.”

Kickoff for the 2025 College Football Playoff National Championship game is set for 6:30 p.m. on Monday at Mercedes Benz Stadium, with television coverage on ESPN.