Duke’s Riley Leonard was the missing link to complete a quartet of elite Triangle quarterbacks
It’s an open question – an open debate, really – whether this is the Triangle’s best class of quarterbacks since 2016 or so, but there’s absolutely no argument that Riley Leonard’s unexpected emergence at Duke last season is what made it that way.
In many ways, Leonard was the missing link in what has become an incredible group of quarterbacks, with the potential to be one of the best this area has ever seen.
Davius Richard has gotten better and better over the course of his career at N.C. Central, to the point where NFL draft scouts are paying attention and he spurned offers from bigger programs this offseason. Brennan Armstrong arrives at N.C. State with his resume already filled out, the ACC leader in passing yardage at Virginia in 2021. And Drake Maye entered last season with the same uncertainty as Leonard but he was a top recruit who switched from Alabama to his father and brother’s alma mater, so his success wasn’t entirely unexpected.
A year ago, Leonard was none of that, a three-star recruit from the previous regime with one disastrous start at Virginia Tech under his belt, competing for the starting job with Jordan Moore as first-year coach Mike Elko took over the program. His grasp of Duke’s new offense – with the playmaking Moore at wide receiver – was one of the biggest surprises and most impactful developments of the season, helping Elko administer an improbable one-year turnaround.
Leonard came out of nowhere so fast, he’s listed variously among the ACC’s (and the country’s) best quarterbacks and also among the most underrated. That’s enough to make anyone’s head spin.
“Isn’t that funny?” Leonard said. “One day I’ll see myself up there top five. The next, he’s the most underrated. I’m not even sure what I am at this point.”
What he is, unquestionably, is an important part of a potentially historic quad. The class of 2016 generated three NFL draft picks, two in the top 10 – UNC’s Mitch Trubisky in 2017 and Duke’s Daniel Jones in 2019 – and one in the fourth round, N.C. State’s Ryan Finley in 2019. NCCU’s Malcolm Bell went undrafted, but brought a MEAC title to Durham and was the Eagles’ most distinguished quarterback of the Division I era, at least until Richard arrived on campus.
Collectively, it’s hard to match that group for talent in recent years, although 2019 – with Sam Howell, Devin Leary and a young Richard – comes close. And Leonard is the missing link, the piece that fell into place to create that embarrassment of riches.
The challenge, of course, is doing it all over again now that everyone knows he’s coming. But Duke also has a few tricks up its sleeve. If Elko and his staff, offensive coordinator Kevin Johns especially, were just learning who their players are and what they do best last season, they’ve had months now to scheme ways to get the most out of them.
There’s no one for whom that rings truer than Leonard, whose command of the offense will allow Duke to do things it couldn’t even consider a year ago – and look how well that went anyway.
“Coach Johns talked to me this offseason about having the keys to the car,” Leonard said. “Last year, we may have had one check out of every play. This year I have maybe 10 options. No matter what I choose, as long as I have an OK explanation for it, he’s going to say, ‘good job, I trust you.’ He coached me to make the right decisions.”
That’ll be put to the test right away against Clemson on Monday, as difficult an opener as there is in the ACC, but the real questions already have been answered. It’s a distinguished group of quarterbacks in the Triangle with the potential to make history, and Leonard knows he belongs as much as any of them.
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This story was originally published September 3, 2023 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Duke’s Riley Leonard was the missing link to complete a quartet of elite Triangle quarterbacks."
