Duke
Leonard: God is good, so is our defense
Riley Leonard speaks to the media after a 28-7 win over Clemson
Yes, I think you're right. I think the uh hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, everybody ready. This is my first. I think the easy question right off the grip is, can you describe the emotion that you guys have? You know what I mean? Getting a win like this for this program first time and how many decades or whatever? And just experiencing the students forming the field and all that, the, the emotion? Yeah. Uh kind of at a loss for words right now, but uh you know, God is good and, and so is our defense. Uh So super grateful to have those guys out there and for the whole fans and all the fan base to support us storm the field. I mean, it's something we've never experienced before as players. So I'm so grateful to be in the situation and it would just be a part of the journey here. What do you? I don't know. I was expecting to get tackled behind the line of scrimmage, but I don't know, I just kind of broke loose and shout out to Jordan Moore for making a down the field block. I think he was, like, 10 yards down the field and without him, I don't cut loose along the sidelines. So, yeah, I don't know. I don't really care if they do or don't. Um, I, I think it is a little bit of an advantage of mine. Um, that people do underestimate my speed. So, you know, their angles are a little off but, you know, whether they call me slow, fast, fat, skinny, whatever it is, I don't mind that a run or um, it was a which play in particular the touch. Oh, yeah, that was just a, that was just a called coach. Coach said he was gonna put the game in my hands. You know, that's all I can ask for. Um, I want to be in control of every single situation on the football field. So he put the ball in my hands and to make it work. Was there a moment when you were in victory formation that you kind of took a breath, took it all in. Yeah, seeing all my friends painted up and my little brother painted up and just looking over to my family and seeing the smiles on their faces. That's why you play. It's for those little moments, you know, it's not necessarily, you know, winning the football game, it's celebrating with your team and celebrating with your family and seeing all the smile and the joy on people's faces. That's what, you know, is very important to me can talk, can you talk about just like the mentality and the belief that you guys had leading up to this game despite, you know, probably what everybody else was saying on the outside, how it came to. Yeah. Yeah. So everybody said, oh, Duke's got a hard schedule this year. They're not gonna be as good. Um And to be honest, we love hearing that. Um obviously we had a great year last year, but we weren't just one and done. Caliber of a team. We worked our tails off this summer when you look at our numbers and our catapult numbers, our speed is faster. We're moving more weight at a higher velocity. Those little things are what's going to get you going through all four quarters and like I said, it's just paying off. So we're going to keep this chip on our shoulder and move into next week because we got a short turn around. What does it do for your confidence level back at AC C in Charlotte? You told me that you all belong here and that you put your socks on just like Clemson does. What does it do for your confidence level? I think we expected to win this football game. Obviously, what gives me the most confidence is how my defense is playing and how everybody else around me is playing because if I can go out there and we had a lot of three and outs today, I got to be better at that. But when the defense is giving them a three and out almost every single drive. I mean, that's what gives me confidence because I know that they have my back. Yeah, probably that much of the message at half time was just to relax and calm everything down. Team, team. I, I think this game was very important to us because we didn't play too many, you know, top of the country teams last year. So we didn't really know where we were, you know, compared to them. But when we got out on that field, we quickly quickly realized that we can hang with these guys, you know, obviously, you see the stars and everything like that. So you're not sure, hey man, are they going to be way faster, way bigger, way stronger than us? You get out there and you start to compete, you know, like, oh, we really can't do this. So when I came in at half time, he just brought that message. If we execute and we play hard, we're going to win this football game if you want. What do you remember about? Not much? Everybody is slapping me on the head. So I think I got confused about it. My head is spinning right now, but I was looking for my family and uh yeah, II I was able to find everybody and get my dad the game ball, so speak, speak to the family, you uh you have some guys from your high school that were, you went to high school with, from a fair up here and everything? What is it mean to have that kind of support of guys coming up here? Yeah. Like, like I say, that's something whenever I'm in high school I just dream about, I dream about, you know, bringing the community of fair hope with me because they are so, so supportive. It's a smaller town in Alabama and, you know, I, I guarantee you, they had watch parties all around the city and everybody was watching there. So um I'm just so grateful to, you know, represent them. Um Yeah, this is something I've been dreaming about for a long time. Did you check it out? Like the end was one block. Yeah, I didn't, I was kind of like, oh best to play. But, you know, it ended up working out for us. Uh Yeah, I don't even remember it too much. I just remember running. What is this? Yeah, I think it's so cool to see where this program has come. I mean, for them to experience the crowd storm in the field like that. I mean, there was a high chance that was never going to happen for them at Duke and then obviously tables turn completely 180 degrees and they're able to experience those things and I'm just so grateful, like I say, just to be a part of the journey and to help them in that my goal I always say is to help these guys create the best memories of their life and to get to the next level. So I think we're getting there. Thank you guys. Have a spectrum.