ATLANTA — When Riley Leonard trots onto the field at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Monday night and assumes his place as Notre Dame‘s starting quarterback, a particular set of eyes will likely be staring back at him from an unorthodox locale, the exact name of which Ohio State refuses to publicly disclose.
It’s not quite safety depth where Caleb Downs is plying his trade these days, though that’s his official designation on the Buckeyes‘ roster and the spot where he earned consensus All-American honors this season. And it’s not quite shallow enough to be considered linebacker territory, either, with teammates Sonny Styles and Cody Simon typically a few steps closer to the line of scrimmage. But from this veritable no-man’s land on what feels like a plane all his own, Downs can inject himself into nearly every play an opponent calls: run or pass, left or right, down in the box or deeper toward the post. And that’s exactly what the coaches envisioned when they introduced the wrinkle partway through the year.
“He can do it all, man,” Ohio State cornerbacks coach Tim Walton told FOX Sports. “He’s a unicorn. I mean, he has a high football IQ and he’s an outstanding athlete. So he’s able to have range as a half-field, middle-field safety, he can play down in the box, he has cover skills versus a slot receiver and cover skills versus a tight end. You don’t find guys that can do all of those things and excel at it. He’s phenomenal in that aspect.”
So while Downs’ deployment in the national title game is unlikely to surprise the Fighting Irish, whose players and coaches paid him plenty of deference during interviews at the Georgia World Congress Center over the weekend, the fact that Notre Dame relies on a dual-threat quarterback makes his involvement that much more interesting. Leonard, who transferred from Duke, will enter the national championship having carried the ball more frequently (167 attempts) than anyone else on Notre Dame’s roster. He’s amassed more rushing yards (866) than any quarterback from the power conferences. He’s scored more touchdowns on the ground (16) than all but 12 players across the country, regardless of position.
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All of which sets the stage for what could be an incredible cat-and-mouse game between Leonard and Downs, two outstanding players whose roles and responsibilities make it a virtual certainty that they’ll collide with the sport’s biggest prize at stake.
“You have to make some decisions about how you’re going to treat [him],” said Notre Dame offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock when asked by FOX Sports about Downs’ positioning. “Is he a linebacker? Is he a safety? Is he something in between? It’s a unique scheme you don’t see a lot. I’d call it kind of a little bit of a ‘nest’ look, where they’ve kind of got him perched up there waiting to pounce, whether you run it or pass it. He’s in a position to affect the game on either side of the field.”
The idea of utilizing Downs in what amounts to a roaming role came to Knowles as he picked himself up from the team’s disheartening midseason loss to Oregon, whose offense mangled the Buckeyes for 496 yards and a season-high 32 points. It was a concept with which Knowles had experimented during his time as the defensive coordinator at Oklahoma State, from 2018-21, and found that it was an effective strategy for containing some of the more explosive offenses in the Big 12, a league known for lighting up the scoreboard. The Cowboys improved from 97th in scoring defense (32.5 points per game) during Knowles’ first season to ninth in his final season (18.1 points per game) before Ohio State head coach Ryan Day lured him away with one of the richest coordinator salaries in the country. Back then, Knowles said, he typically selected his roving player from Oklahoma State’s front seven rather than its secondary.
But Downs gives the Buckeyes a chess piece that is different than anything Knowles coached at previous locations. Downs is a former five-star recruit who enrolled at Alabama and became the first freshman in program history to lead the Crimson Tide in tackles (107) while earning All-America honors last fall. He is a football lifer whose father, Gary Downs, was a third-round pick at running back by the New York Giants in 1994 and whose brother, Josh Downs, caught 72 passes for 803 yards and five touchdowns for the Indianapolis Colts this season. He’s an X’s and O’s junkie who grilled Knowles so intensely about the intricacies of Ohio State’s defense after entering the transfer portal last winter that his future coordinator called the experience “harder than any interview I ever did for a job.” He is a film room savant known for taking copious notes during meetings and who is so knowledgeable that fellow Buckeyes jokingly refer to him as the team’s co-defensive coordinator, even though Downs is only a sophomore and the unit’s youngest starter.
Which made it somewhat predictable that Downs has deftly handled his personalized responsibilities over the last three months, catalyzing an Ohio State defense that leads the nation in scoring at 12.2 points per game and arrived in Atlanta brimming with confidence after smothering Tennessee, Oregon and Texas in the first three rounds of the College Football Playoff, never surrendering more than eight points in an opening half. He seized control of the fourth quarter against the Longhorns with a piercing tackle for loss near the goal line that preempted the sack-fumble-touchdown by edge rusher Jack Sawyer and then sealed the victory with an interception of Quinn Ewers in the waning moments.
“They try to do things to scheme [Downs] to be kind of the free hitter,” said Gino Guidugli, the quarterbacks coach at Notre Dame, during an interview with FOX Sports. “And some of those fits are kind of strange for the offensive line, so we’ll have some things planned for that. It will be an interesting matchup because more times than not, he’ll be the one that’s the free hitter that’s going to get to be on the quarterback. We’ll take our guy [Leonard] every time.”
Guidugli’s sentiment is understandable considering just how effectively and relentlessly Leonard has run the ball this season, in what was far and away his most productive collegiate rushing campaign. In addition to establishing new personal bests for rushing yards and rushing touchdowns — both of which ranked second on the team behind star tailback Jeremiyah Love, who has run for 1,112 yards and 17 scores — Leonard set new career highs for runs of 10-plus yards (25) and missed tackles forced (41). His average of 3.27 yards per attempt after contact exceeded every quarterback from the power leagues and ranked 51st nationally for all players, running backs included, among those with at least the same number of carries.
In a preview of what might happen in the national championship, Leonard’s workload as a runner has increased during each round of the College Football Playoff: from 11 carries for 30 yards and a touchdown against Indiana, to 14 carries for 80 yards against Georgia, to 18 carries for 35 punishing yards against Penn State, who walloped the Notre Dame quarterback with punishing hits on more than one occasion. It wouldn’t be surprising to see him exceed 20 carries in a game for the first time all season when facing Ohio State on Monday night.
And Leonard knows that Downs will be tracking him every step of the way.
“He’s one of the fastest players that I will have played against this year,” Leonard said. “And very instinctive. He sees the game really well.”
Michael Cohen covers college football and basketball for FOX Sports with an emphasis on the Big Ten. Follow him at @Michael_Cohen13.
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