Mike Denbrock believes quarterback run game with Riley Leonard will be important

When he’s at his best, Notre Dame quarterback Riley Leonard can hurt you with his arm and legs. And new Irish offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock plans to lean on the dual-threat quality of his quarterback.

There’s little reason not to think it’s a good idea. In three seasons at Duke, Leonard averaged more than five yards a carry, including sack yardage.

“I think today’s college football, it’s important when you get against elite defenses to be able to have some element of that in what you do,” Denbrock said. “It doesn’t have to be the major factor. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the deciding factor. But there are going to be instances almost in every football game — and I think that happened here last year with Sam [Hartman]. There were times when he had to get out of the pocket and make a play with his feet. And it led to some pretty positive results. So those things will be an element of what we do for sure.”

The biggest hurdle for Leonard to running, so far, has been health. He played in just even games in 2023 as a spate of injuries kept him out at various times.

But when healthy, he’s a long-striding, physical runner at 6-foot-4 and around 215 pounds. During his sophomore season in 2022, Leonard was a dangerous runner, making defensive pay to the tune of 5.6 yards per carry and 13 touchdowns in 13 games. He totaled 699 yards on the ground that year.

And amid injuries last season, Leonard was still an effective runner. He bumped up his yards per carry to 6.1 and scored four touchdowns on 58 attempts.

As Denbrock said, Notre Dame wants Leonard to be a quarterback that operates from the pocket and looks to feed his playmakers first.

But they’re not going to pass on utilizing the fact that Leonard can be a playmaker on his own, too.

Denbrock shared how he’s grown since previous stops at Notre Dame

Denbrock is now in his third tenure under his third different head coach as an offensive assistant at Notre Dame. That included a previous one-season stint as the team’s offensive coordinator, which is the role he’s now filling again.

It’s been seven seasons since Denbrock last coached at Notre Dame. In each of those seasons, Denbrock was an offensive coordinator, first at Cincinnati and later at LSU. With that better experience in mind, he recently shared how he feels he’s grown as a coordinator since he left Notre Dame.

“Experience is the best teacher,” Mike Denbrock said. “Even though I had been in that role before since leaving here the last time, it’s kind of been a lot more where it was my show to run. You’re always going to have influences from the head coach and he’s always going to have a voice in what you do and how you do it and that’s OK. I’m unbelievably fine with that.”

Denbrock had a relationship with Brian Kelly dating back to their time together at Grand Valley State. After that, he held several offensive assistant roles, including under Tyrone Willingham at Notre Dame. He later returned to the Irish under Kelly. Now, with Marcus Freeman running the program, he’s again back to lead the offense.

Most recently in his career, Mike Denbrock has found success at LSU under Brian Kelly. In particular, he helped Jayden Daniels to win the Heisman Trophy while the Tigers averaged 45.5 points per game in 2023, the best in the country.

“But I was able to break away and develop my own way of doing things. My own system. My own style of offense, if you will, and how that fits what I think, based on the personnel we have available to us, what the best way to do that is,” Denbrock said.

“Been able to adjust it the way I want. Been able to add to it the way I want. Been able to subtract from it the way I’ve wanted. That’s the biggest difference now. Experience is a great teacher, number one, and number two, the system that we’re going to run and its development is something I’m in complete control of.”