Riley Leonard and Will Howard were 3-star recruits. Now they’re playing for the national title
The Rose Bowl confetti had fallen, the trophy presentation was underway and all Will Howard wanted to do was celebrate with his teammates.
But as the Buckeyes quarterback made his way to the makeshift stage just moments after Ohio State dominated top-ranked Oregon in the College Football Playoff quarterfinals, a Rose Bowl official stopped him. The portable platform, packed with Howard’s teammates and coaches, had already reached its weight capacity. No room for Howard, who’d just thrown for 319 yards and three touchdowns.
“His teammates are like, ‘Hey, that’s the quarterback for God’s sake!’” Mike Milano, who coached Howard at Downingtown West (Pa.) High, said of a video clip that made the rounds on social media. “(But) that’s kind of how it’s gone, right? That’s kind of how it’s gone.”
Will Howard can’t get on the stage!
Let Will on the podium. pic.twitter.com/6lEGb5H7US
— Adam King (@AdamKing10TV) January 2, 2025
As Howard gears up to lead Ohio State into Monday night’s national championship game against Notre Dame, the Buckeyes’ starting QB is no stranger to being overlooked. As a transfer from Kansas State, he didn’t win Ohio State’s quarterback job until August. As a three-star high school recruit and the No. 882 overall prospect in the Class of 2020, he can remember college football coaches telling him he wasn’t good enough to play for them.
And yet, if there’s one player in the country who might be able to relate to that feeling, it’s the quarterback who will be on the other sideline at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Monday night.
Riley Leonard was also a three-star recruit, signing with Duke as the No. 683 prospect and No. 47 quarterback in the Class of 2021. He, too, had little Power 4 interest and even fewer Power 4 offers.
Now both quarterbacks are on the precipice of delivering their programs a national championship in the first year of the 12-team College Football Playoff. Not too shabby for a couple of overlooked three-stars.
“Just because somebody was labeled a three-star, that doesn’t make them a three-star prospect,” said Zac Roper, Leonard’s former offensive coordinator at Duke. “That makes whoever did the evaluation, that makes them wrong.”
Howard had everything going for him when he arrived at Downingtown West.
“He was 6-4 in 10th grade,” said Milano, who retired last year after 30 years in high school football. “He wasn’t 235 (pounds) or whatever he is now. He was probably 215 or 220. But he had the measurable piece. He was athletic, and he was also a really good basketball player — he was a 1,000-point scorer in our basketball program. He was a three-sport kid.”
Howard earned the starting job as a sophomore and was “the obvious talent on the team,” Milano said, despite the Whippets going 5-5 that year. He finished the season 117-of-190 passing for 1,447 yards with nine touchdowns and four interceptions and added 206 yards and six touchdowns on the ground.
When the season ended, Milano offered Howard and his family some advice as they began the recruiting process.
“Let’s create a list of where you want to go and be proactive from the start and then see what kind of action we get from there,” Milano told them.
Howard grew up an avid Penn State fan and always dreamed of playing for the Nittany Lions. Head coach James Franklin once arrived at his game in a helicopter, and Howard seemed on track to garner plenty of Power 4 interest as he led his team to a 6-0 record to open his junior season.
Then everything changed.
“We’re playing our league rival in midseason who had been the district champion in southeastern Pennsylvania for the last five years, and they’re kicking our butt, and with about a minute to go in the first half, Will gets sacked and he breaks his arm,” Milano said. “It was devastating. He was crushed. I was crushed.”
Howard missed the rest of the season and was unable to throw for college coaches when they came through that December. His recruitment stalled.
There is one story that stands out. Milano didn’t want to name the school, but Howard visited a Big Ten program with the understanding that he had two days — after the trip — to decide if he wanted to commit. Howard and his family took one day to think about it, then called to accept the offer, only to learn it was not committable.
“That was a huge setback,” Milano said.
So, Howard got creative.
A Philadelphia Eagles fan, Howard loved watching Carson Wentz play and took note when Chris Klieman, Wentz’s college coach at North Dakota State, accepted the job at Kansas State in December 2018. Hoping to get on Klieman’s radar, Howard and Milano sent the new Kansas State staff some of the quarterback’s film. Shortly after, K-State offensive coordinator Collin Klein was en route to Pennsylvania to watch Howard throw, his arm now healed.
“He was extremely mature, extremely articulate, incredibly smart, and so all of those things were pretty evident early,” said Klein, now the OC at Texas A&M. “I remember going up, and when I got to see him throw in person for the first time, I was just really impressed with how accurate he was and how good of an athlete he was. Being as big as he is and how he moved around and was able to make throws on the run and make throws from different platforms even in high school, you could tell, ‘Hey, there’s really something to this kid.’”
Howard eventually signed with the Wildcats and spent four seasons in Manhattan before transferring to Ohio State last offseason in search of a new opportunity.
“His No. 1 goal in this fifth year was, ‘Hey, I want two things, Coach,’” Milano recalled. “‘I want a chance to compete for a national championship if I can, and I want to improve my draft stock.’
“He works his ass off to get what he wants. And he always knew what he wanted.”
A year later and nearly 1,100 miles to the south, Leonard began his own recruiting process in the spring of 2020.
Like Howard, Leonard was an under-the-radar, three-star prospect with a 6-foot-4 frame and athleticism galore.
Unlike Howard, football wasn’t his primary focus.
“Up until the end of high school, I thought basketball would be my main sport,” he wrote in an essay on his website. “I had a number of Division I basketball scholarship offers before I received my first football offer.”
Leonard, whose father played basketball at The Citadel and whose uncle played at Georgetown, was known most for his dunks. Windmills, tomahawks, 360s: The two-time AL.com Basketball Male Athlete of the Year could do it all.
360 dunk by Duke football signee, Riley Leonard. 👀@rileyleonard12 | Fairhope HS, AL pic.twitter.com/r4FeHDbXPm
— Hudl (@Hudl) January 27, 2021
— recruitvids3 (@recruitvids3) September 5, 2023
But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in the spring of his junior year, Leonard didn’t have the opportunity to travel on the grassroots circuit. So he started focusing more on football, having just picked up his third varsity letter under coach Tim Carter at Fairhope High in the Mobile, Ala., area.
“I try not to make that decision (for kids),” Carter said. “I just want multiple-sport athletes to play, and usually they figure it out. I did think Riley had more upside in football. So selfishly, yeah, I guess maybe I wanted him to play football.”
Carter wasn’t alone in that assessment.
In the months before the pandemic, football coaches at Duke were busy building their recruiting board for the Class of 2021 when Kent McLeod, then the director of player personnel, walked into Roper’s office.
McLeod had been evaluating Leonard and wanted to know what Roper thought. They started by watching Leonard’s basketball clips but saw the potential in football.
“The athleticism just jumped off the tape,” said Roper, now the OC at NC State. “And as you’re watching it, you’re seeing a long, tall, athletic guy handle the ball, shoot the ball. Obviously, everybody has seen the dunk tapes and those things, so you’re seeing the athleticism that just wowed you.
“As we were talking, he had not played a ton of quarterback at that time. When he was younger, he kind of played some quarterback but also played some receiver. But you saw enough that got you excited about the potential of him as a quarterback.”
McLeod and Roper agreed that Roper should travel to Alabama to watch Leonard throw in person. At best, he’d be able to slide into Duke’s offense and develop into coach David Cutcliffe’s next top quarterback. At worst, Duke could use him at tight end.
“And then COVID hit,” Roper said. “All those opportunities to then try to go see guys in the spring, that was gone.”
Leonard eventually started working more frequently with David Morris, a quarterback trainer in Mobile who backed up Eli Manning at Ole Miss under Cutcliffe.
Morris was honest with the Duke coaches in his initial assessment of Leonard, who had potential but was still raw.
Then, he sent a video of one of Leonard’s throwing sessions to Duke’s staff.
“Knowing that you weren’t going to be able to go see it in person, see it live for yourself, you could see what you needed to see in the workout that Riley and David did together,” Roper said. “You immediately knew, ‘OK. He throws it like one that’s got a real chance.’”
Leonard reported offers from Duke and Syracuse on the same day in May 2020. Nebraska and Vanderbilt followed days later.
Within two weeks, Leonard started thinking about issuing a commitment. But he hadn’t taken any official visits in person because of the pandemic. So he and his family decided to fly from Atlanta to Nebraska to check out the campus on their own, then fly back to the Southeast and drive up to Duke.
“True story,” Carter said. “They book a trip to Nebraska, and Nebraska was really kind of putting the screws to him. They needed a decision because they had an in-state kid and they had Riley that they offered, and they were going to take one.
“While (the Leonards) are eating lunch (in Nebraska), they get a call. The kid from Nebraska had committed to the University of Nebraska.”
Carter said then-Nebraska coach Scott Frost quickly informed Leonard that the Cornhuskers would take two quarterbacks if he still wanted to commit. His offer still stood.
“But Riley just … I remember him saying he loved the feeling of Duke and the campus, and that’s when he made his commitment,” Carter said. “It was not your typical season.”
Leonard starred at Duke, helping the Blue Devils improve from 3-9 in 2021 in Cutcliffe’s final season to 9-4 in 2022 in Mike Elko’s first. Before injuries cut his 2023 season short, Leonard led the Blue Devils to one of their biggest wins in school history, a 28-7 victory over Clemson on Labor Day.
After Duke’s second straight winning season, Elko departed for the job at Texas A&M and Leonard transferred to Notre Dame.
“All the things that you would want in a player on your team, in a quarterback, all those characteristics are there,” Roper said. “We’ll see what happens at the next level (in the NFL). But I see a guy that could play 10 years in that league.”
Fairhope is a hotbed of Alabama and Auburn fans, but many in the town of 25,000 will be pulling for Notre Dame on Monday night. Watch parties are planned.
“He is the champion of our town,” Carter said. “And I won’t say Notre Dame is a beloved university to anybody who is (not) Catholic that lives in the South. … But that’s the kind of kid he is.”
Klein will be rooting for his former quarterback from his new home in Texas.
“I’m not surprised one bit. Not one bit,” Klein said. “Will, even his story and career at Kansas State was not without its ups and downs, and his level of resiliency, his level of toughness, to be able to continue getting better throughout the season — this isn’t the only year that’s happened.
“Will made me a better coach. … Absolutely, I’m pulling for my guy.”
The Buckeyes, 8.5-point favorites, are the popular pick to win their first national title since 2014.
Howard is as motivated as ever after Ohio State’s losses to Oregon and Michigan in the regular season. But with Leonard running the show, Notre Dame will no doubt present a formidable challenge.
It will be two quarterbacks, overlooked no more, playing on the biggest stage.
“Neither one of them were three-star guys,” said Roper, who also recruited Howard. “Let’s put a label on it. They’re both high four-star guys, five-star guys because of not just their ability but who they are.
“Those two teams are there (in large) part (because) of who those two quarterbacks are and what they’re about.”
(Photos: Sam Navarro, Jerome Miron / Imagn Images)
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