Quarterback Riley Leonard was Notre Dame's highest-graded offensive player Saturday for the Irish in the 28-3 win over Miami (Ohio), per the Pro Football Focus overnight film reviews. But No. 2 and 3 were the two players who stepped on on the O-line for injured starters. Right guard Rocco Spindler was No. 2 among players who logged at least 10 snaps and center Pat Coogan was 3. On defense, Junior Tuihalamaka, whose role expanded at vyper when starter Jordan Botelho was lost for the season, was ND's top-rated player on either side of the ball.

Crazy how good and prepared freshmen can come in now. Clausen was “LeBron in cleats” and Weis wouldn’t let him throw beyond 5 yards. So much more advanced coming out of high school and 7-on-7. Adds pressure that Carr better be ready to roll next season.

His comment alluded to the fact he's not happy the calls aren't some of Leonards favorite or most comfortable plays in the postgame.

At least that's how I heard it..

Guys, it's always good to see an ND win. We saw 12 of those in 2012 with a great defense, a good running offense, but the passing game was not matured enough to win 13. There are a few reason why we didn't win 13, but I'm trying to draw a parallel with this team. We may go 11-1 this year. But, the passing game has to mature enough to scare team from going 8 in the box. Riley is an amazing athlete and leader. But, will that win in the playoffs? I hope he can confidently trust his receivers enough to through more down field.

Here's everything four Notre Dame players had to say from today's postgame press conference in transcript form. Answers are largely verbatim. Questions may have been edited for brevity and clarity.

RILEY LEONARD

When the offense is sputtering at the beginning of the game, is there anyone the group rallies around to get things going in the right direction?

“We’re a pretty mature group all around. There aren’t guys that are going to get too low on themselves and on the offense as a whole. There aren’t guys that are going to get too high. I can do a better job of rounding those guys up. But for the most part, we’re a mature group and everybody’s kind of feeling the same thing. Let's get back out there on the next drive and try to prove it. Luckily, we don’t have any attitude problems on the sideline when things aren’t going as expected.”

Where were the misses and hits in your game today?

“The misses are just on me being lackadaisical and not finishing with my mechanics and things like that. The hits, obviously, come when you trust your guys around you. Our best drives are when I was just getting it to our playmakers and letting them go. So, I gotta do a better job of being confident in those guys, just letting them make plays, not trying to do too much and sticking with the basics.”

When things weren’t going well early in the game, how do you keep patience? How do you rebuild your confidence?

“I’ve played a lot of football, a lot of collegiate football in my life. I’ve been through these situations where you might start slow, you might start missing easy passes. As a quarterback, it happens. I’ve just seen myself respond throughout the years multiple times. You saw it two weeks ago, how we responded as a whole last week. You kind of just learn who you are as a person, who you are as a player. When my back’s against the wall and I’m not performing to my best abilities, I tend to respond pretty well.”

Coach Denbrock talks about the vision of what you’re going to look like down the road. Do you think about that? Is it something that you were able to buy into right away? Do you feel that? Or is is something you put on the back burner and play football until you get there?

“It’s a little bit of both. Obviously, I understand what this offense can evolve to. It's kind of just my job to guide it in that direction. Still figuring some things out, but I think every game we’re getting better at the things that we struggled with the game before. Obviously, with the deep ball, it gave me a lot of confidence to know I can throw the ball down the field. Something good happened the majority of the time we did that, whether it was a PI, guys making plays. One of the biggest things for me is I can underthrow a guy and have the confidence that he doesn’t always have to catch it, but the defender won’t. That gains a lot of trust in me. I underthrew Jayden Harrison in the end zone, and what maybe would have been a pick in some people’s eye on an underthrown ball, he went up and made a play. He dropped it at the end, but it gave me a lot of confidence in that. The deep ball’s getting better. We’re nicking and nacking all these little things and improving. We just gotta sometimes stick to the basics and the fundamentals and remember the fundamentals of football, and we’ll really progress.”

Did what Mike Denbrock call align with what you saw from Miami (Ohio) on tape? How did they defend you as a runner?

“They did a really good job. I really thought that they would be in more zone. They played a little bit more man than expected. They got a good defense. They’re really sound and didn’t have too many MAs (missed assignments) defensively. Third down, their packages were really good. Can do a better job in protection to make sure everybody’s on the same page on my end. On their empty sets, they showed some stuff that we haven’t seen before, to be honest, a couple of times. You knew that they were going to be a really well-prepared football team. They showed us some new looks, but they also stuck to the basics. There were some situations and formations where we kind of knew what we were going to get, but they changed it up a little bit.”

Did you feel like the offensive line helped wear down Miami? While the defense was getting stops, did attrition work in your favor today?

“Obviously, with the way the defense plays, it takes a lot of pressure off us as an offense. We’re able to go out there and maybe take risks and play freely, because we know we have such a great defense. I’m confident in our game if we were to make a mistake. Up front on the offensive line, I thought they did an outstanding job. Obviously, a lot of new faces in there. I say new faces, but these guys that are coming in started multiple games. We might have had more total starts this game than we had in the previous two. I’d be curious to look that up. They did an outstanding job.”

The crowd was booing early. Did you notice that at all?

“Nah. We tune out all the noise. We stick to our stuff. We understand we gotta perform. We gotta put on a show. We don’t really listen too much to the outside noise. I know my job’s to win the football game. So, regardless of any of that, we can’t let it bother us. It is what it is, and we won. So, yeah.”

Being a former ACC guy, what are your thoughts going up against Louisville?

“Played them two times in my past. It’s a redemption game for me, as well as all these guys. They’re going to be a great team. Obviously, they got a lot of skill, a lot of new faces around their program. But a really well-coached team. It will be a lot of fun to go out there and compete against those guys. I’m very excited.”

We're opening up the game thread early for today's Notre Dame-Miami (Ohio) game.

We will use this game thread as the primary home for game commentary from now until after the game. We have some rules we'll ask you to follow, which will be included below.

If you're not following the rules and do not respond well to reminders, we'll remove you're posting privileges for the rest of the day. We have too much to do today to argue about it during the game. This doesn't happen often as we're pretty lenient in the game thread, but please keep that in mind.

@HotCarNut has disciplinary powers as a moderator. You can argue with him about the game, but do not argue with him about the rules.

Our game thread rules:

1. Use this thread until the end of the game for ongoing game commentary. We'd like to keep the conversation in one place. If something from the game merits a separate conversation of substance, go ahead and start another thread for that topic. When in doubt, post in the game thread.

2. Criticism of decision-making by coaches and players is allowed. But please avoid making it personal. Don't be malicious. Remember, that person's mother could be reading your post. If you cross the line, you'll lose posting privileges for the day.

3. Don't be a doofus. Have some respect for your fellow subscribers.

Jeff Douglas snagged some photos of Notre Dame recruits heading into Notre Dame Stadium ahead of today's game against Miami (Ohio).

Here are 2026 targets Gregory Patrick (near) and Joey O'Brien (left).



Login to view embedded media Login to view embedded media

You can watch here:

Login to view embedded media

We're coming to you live from Ross-Ade Stadium in West Lafayette, Ind., for today's Notre Dame-Purdue game.

We will use this game thread as the primary home for game commentary from now until after the game. We have some rules we'll ask you to follow, which will be included below.

If you're not following the rules and do not respond well to reminders, we'll remove you're posting privileges for the rest of the day. We have too much to do today to argue about it during the game. This doesn't happen often as we're pretty lenient in the game thread, but please keep that in mind.

@HotCarNut has disciplinary powers as a moderator. You can argue with him about the game, but do not argue with him about the rules.

Our game thread rules:

1. Use this thread until the end of the game for ongoing game commentary. We'd like to keep the conversation in one place. If something from the game merits a separate conversation of substance, go ahead and start another thread for that topic. When in doubt, post in the game thread.

2. Criticism of decision-making by coaches and players is allowed. But please avoid making it personal. Don't be malicious. Remember, that person's mother could be reading your post. If you cross the line, you'll lose posting privileges for the day.

3. Don't be a doofus. Have some respect for your fellow subscribers.

One Notre Dame player has previously won this award, given out annually since 2014 -- OT Ronnie Stanley in 2015.

Through three games, the freshman linebacker is tied for second on the team with 13 tackles. That includes a tackle for loss, with 0.5 sacks. He's one of four Irish players with an interception this season.

Login to view embedded media

DE Joshua Burnham is out. Backup OT Tosh Baker is available. Both were deemed questionable earlier this week.

Notre Dame S commit JaDon Blair with the nice touchdown catch.

Login to view embedded media
Login to view embedded media

Notre Dame's search for 2025 wide receivers reached into Florida on Tuesday. Arizona commit Isaiah Mizell reported an offer from the Irish. Rivals rates the Orlando (Fla.) Boone product as a three-star recruit.

Mizell caught 17 passes for 389 yards and four touchdowns in the first two games of his senior season. As a junior, Mizzell totaled 48 receptions for 1,061 yards and 21 touchdowns.

Mizell showed his speed on the track with a 100-meter dash of 10.49 seconds, a 200-meter dash of 21.51 and a 400-meter dash of 49.26 at a meet in April.

Mizell committed to Arizona in July ahead of fellow finalists Georgia Tech, Syracuse and Kansas State.

Login to view embedded media
Login to view embedded media
Login to view embedded media
Login to view embedded media

Let's get the prediction thread rolling for Saturday's game.

In our Place Your Bets video, we made the following predictions:

@Eric Hansen: Notre Dame 31, Miami 9
Me: Notre Dame 45, Miami 6

What say you?

You can listen to both the Gameday Show (10 a.m. ET-Noon) and Gameday SportsBeat (Noon-2:30 p.m.) on 96.1 FM, wsbtradio.com and on the free WSBT Radio app.

FIRST UP

Tim Grauel and Jim Irizarry on Gameday from 10am – 12noon. Broadcasting under the WSBT tent next to the Bru Burger in Eddy Street Commons.

Scheduled guests include:

Former Fighting Irish All-American and NFL player running back Reggie Brooks
Former Notre Dame defensive back Ray Herring
Former ND team captain and All-American, and author Frank Pomarico
Steve Filer, former ND linebacker

THEN IT'S ...
Eric Hansen, Darin Pritchett and Tyler Horka on the Gameday SportsBeat show Noon-2:30 p.m. ET
Breaking down the matchup with Miami (Ohio), reviewing the Purdue win and analyzing the big picture of ND's season.

Update: Visitors preview has been posted.


I'll have a full visitors preview on the site Friday, but I wanted to share the notable names of the expected visitors for Saturday's Notre Dame home game against Miami (Ohio). I'll update with more prospects later today.

This is premium content. Please subscribe to view.

Former Notre Dame and Miami (Ohio) quarterback Andrew Hendrix discusses his perspective on Notre Dame's start to the season, who he'll be rooting for Saturday, head coach Chuck Martin's longevity at Miami, the career of ND offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock, balancing patience and running as a quarterback, the future of the MAC, why finishing his career at Miami was the right choice, why he wasn't the right choice early in his ND career and more.

Then @Eric Hansen and I answer questions from Twitter and The Insider Lounge (20:21).

Login to view embedded media

@Eric Hansen and I make prop bets and predictions ahead of a home game for No. 17 Notre Dame (2-1) vs. Miami (0-2) on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. EDT on NBC.

Inside ND Sports subscribers can submit their Place Your Bets votes on The Insider Lounge for a chance at a free year-long subscription. Voting for the Miami (Ohio) game is open here.

• Over/Under 40.5 rushing yards for Miami

• Who will lead the Irish in receptions? (More yards will be tiebreaker)

• Over/Under 10.5 carries for Riley Leonard

• Which ND linebacker will play the most snaps?

• Over/Under 39.5 yards per punt for ND’s James Rendell

Login to view embedded media
Click here to subscribe to Inside ND Sports on YouTube.

Interesting, I guess the little session on how to coach your team, with the NIU coach paid off. Crazy that our coach is getting advice from the guy that out coached him in the last game. Go Irish

Called QB keepers destroys play effectiveness and recruiting by
- Denying OFF skillplayers the stats they need for scouting (how does Rileys running stats help him, or more importantly Love and Price? Why are our most talented ball carriers not getting the friggin ball on every play? )
- diminishing the respect for RB's, TEs and WRs (do you think our 25 WR recruiting opportunities have improved in the last 3 weeks with our playcalling? How is Brown going to keep the WR room motivated all year - by thanking them for great blocking)
- Allowing D's to load the box
pulling LBs to the line and safeties up.
- Reinforcing the urge for QB to pull eyes down and run vice looking downfield for progressions
- prioritizing QB hits instead of downfield throwing stats
- what modern age QB recruit wants to be in a program like this?

Its great to have a QB that can scramble when they need to, but called keepers are just a lazy, destructive way to try to catch defenses off guard. I dont care if Riley cant throw, They have to go. Please stop this insanity! Put in a QB that can throw first. We're suffering a rapid recruiting death otherwise.

It looks like the Arch Manning era of Texas football may have begun.

Ewers has injury history and could be out through the bye week or longer.

If Texas gets on a roll in league play before Ewers can return I could see some discussion about preserving eligibility so he can transfer out and let Arch take the program over.

I asked Notre Dame running back Jadarian Price if he thought he was going to run the clock out when he was given a handoff late in the first half against Purdue. Instead, Price ran for a 70-yard touchdown.

Price: "Coach told me to go in and bust one. Leading up to that point, I think I had less than 15 yards rushing. He was like, ‘Go in and bust one.’ Literally said that. I went in thinking they’re not going to expect something, so there is nothing to lose. I’m just going to do anything possible to get as many yards as possible and it ended up happening.”

@samspiegelman shares the latest he's hearing on QB Deuce Knight.


Login to view embedded media