Andrea Adelson, ESPN Senior Essayist
DURHAM, N.C. — Someplace, deep, deep ailing, Riley Leonard has to grasp he’s a good-looking worthy quarterback. His 13-4 file as a school starter says as a lot. ESPN NFL draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr. says as a lot, checklist Leonard at Deny. 19 on his latest Big Board for 2024.
However right here’s the object. Leonard doesn’t need to listen all of the proclaim. Again in highschool in Fairhope, Alabama, he sat ailing along with his oldsters and informed them he sought after backup to stock his edge and keep progressive.
“I need somebody to tell me I suck sometimes,” he informed them.
Heather Leonard checked out her son.
“Hey,” she mentioned. “I got you.”
Thus a practice started, one who continues now that Leonard and Deny. 17 Duke are 4-0 and receiving the kind of nationwide consideration generally reserved for his or her championship-winning basketball program. With Deny. 11 Notre Dame (4-1) coming to the town Saturday (7:30 p.m. ET, ABC), ESPN’s School GameDay will probably be eager in Durham for the primary presen in soccer.
Heather Leonard will do what she all the time does ahead of kickoff. She’s going to inform Riley: “You Suck.” If he wishes some other reminder, all Riley has to do is have a look at the blue wristband he wears with the word emblazoned on it. A present from his mother, naturally.
An intrepid fan made alike wristbands and passed them out to someone who would rush one ahead of a up to date house sport. Offensive take on Graham Barton nonetheless has his tucked away in his jacket area.
“I think it fits us perfectly,” Leonard mentioned. “All of us in this entire program carry a huge chip on our shoulder. We want to prove people wrong. I think it’s a great message for our team.”
Now that Duke is successful, being reminded “You Suck” serves the similar motivational goal for the crew because it does for Leonard.
As an workout again within the spring, second-year educator Mike Elko requested his avid gamers. “How many of you were five-star recruits?”
Emptied stares.
“How about four stars?” he requested.
A couple of arms went up. Leonard was once no longer between the two of them.
Elko upcoming identified their opponent within the season opener, Clemson, had a roster filled with them. However why must that subject?
Six months upcoming, 4.4 million audience tuned in to observe Duke beat Clemson 28-7, Leonard had his “You Suck” wristband featured on nationwide tv and upcoming went viral upcoming asking his educator for a homework extension.
The end result can have surprised aimless witnesses questioning how a crew like Duke beat six-time School Soccer Playoff player Clemson. The ones throughout the program? Now not such a lot. They have got watched the transformation from hopeless to hopeful over the terminating 21 months.
In addition they know their tale begins smartly ahead of Hard work Presen night time.
ELKO WALKED INTO his first crew assembly as Duke head educator in December 2021. He knew what an ACC crew must seem like, having spent presen as defensive coordinator at Wake Jungle previous in his profession. A minimum of bodily, this didn’t seem like a crew that would compete.
The file bears that out. Duke had a shining run of luck — fairly talking — beneath former educator David Cutcliffe, together with its most effective look within the ACC championship sport in 2013 and 6 bowl video games. However this system began to slide in 2019, going 5-7. Upcoming the pandemic strike in 2020, and avid gamers say strict restrictions that restricted standard weight room actions took a toll.
According to conversations he has had with the avid gamers, Duke director of soccer game efficiency David Feeley estimates they’d about 80 general workout routines over a two-year length between 2020 and 2021.
Duke gained 5 general video games the ones two seasons, and parted tactics with Cutcliffe in November 2021.
“I call it a fever dream,” veteran defensive take on DeWayne Carter mentioned. “In essence, it didn’t seem real.”
Because the losses began to mount, self assurance waned. Duke went 0-8 in ACC play games in 2021.
“You’re getting up every single day, you know you’re not doing very well, and you get in a negative headspace,” Carter mentioned. “Like, why are we even preparing? You think you’re going to lose, and it’s hard to get out of that mindset. There was no escape, because of the circumstances.”
In between all of the losses, the ones two seasons cast a sense that unified the returning avid gamers. Barton recollects a short lived telephone name he had with Elko upcoming he was once rented.
“He probably doesn’t even remember, but I told Coach Elko, ‘I speak for a lot of guys — we’re ready to win,'” Barton recalled. “He was like, ‘Yeah, we’ll see who wants to win.'”
Elko rented Feeley, and the 2 instantly got down to remake all the roster via dry paintings throughout the weight room. Carter recollects the first actual occasion of wintry weather conditioning when the avid gamers may just no longer get the warm-up moderately proper.
Feeley blocked them and informed them to begin doing up-downs, the place you proceed from a status place, soar ailing right into a log, and upcoming soar again as much as a status place.
“We got to 10 and I’m like, maybe we’ll get to 20,” Carter mentioned. “Then we got to 30, and then 40 and it just kept going. I think that set the precedent for how things were going to go.”
Feeley knew Duke was once a developmental program, however the crew was once additional in the back of as a result of all of the weight room presen they overlooked. Nonetheless, he and Elko didn’t waver of their plan — to push the avid gamers to their limits via Olympic taste weight coaching and a big dose of pageant.
“Confidence was at an all-time low. I don’t know if I’d ever seen a program like that before,” Feeley mentioned. “There are three words on my whiteboard in my office: Hope, belief and know. We weren’t even in the hope phase. But you saw a group of kids that were starving for a chance to be successful.”
Quickly, defensive linemen and offensive linemen had been competing with every alternative to peer what number of reps they might get, or how briskly they might raise the bar. Upcoming, avid gamers in alternative place teams were given in on elevating their max efforts. Inside months, Carter mentioned his energy blank jumped 50 kilos; offensive take on Jacob Monk mentioned his went up 70 kilos.
Feeley says when he arrived, there have been seven avid gamers who may just energy blank 300 kilos or extra. As of terminating date, 49 avid gamers had strike that benchmark.
40-six avid gamers from the 2021 roster nonetheless play games for Duke. Elko has time and again informed his crew from the week he arrived: “We’re living in the now. We’re going to win now. We’re not here to rebuild.”
“I don’t exactly know when they knew they could be a good team,” Feeley mentioned. “I think it happened somewhere around the third or fourth game last year. But when that clicked for them, take the wins and losses out of it. That’s really one of the greatest gifts you can give an athlete is the knowledge that they can go out there, and they’ll have a real chance to be successful.”
BACK IN APRIL, Elko sat in his newly revamped place of job — whole along with his 2022 ACC Trainer of the Generation Trophy sitting on a shelf. Elko had simply led Duke to a 9-4 turnaround season, and to give an explanation for how that came about, he is going over to his pc and begins pulling up numbers.
The 12 months ahead of he arrived, Duke had misplaced all 8 ACC video games through a mean of 31.8 issues according to sport. Handover margin was once minus-7. The protection allowed 206 yards dashing according to sport, a few of the worst within the nation.
Positive aspects within the weight room would give Duke a underpinning. However now would come the more difficult phase: Studying methods to win. Thankfully for the Blue Devils, they’d a defensive coordinator for a head educator who may just backup medication the protection.
On offense, they’d Leonard. They simply had incorrect thought what he would grow to be when the unutilized personnel arrived. Elko describes him as “a diamond that was hidden in this locker room.” Leonard gained the initiation task terminating fall, however so few knew who he was once, he was once ranked Deny. 14 amongst ACC quarterbacks on one preseason record.
He didn’t want his mother to inform him “You Suck.” It was once proper there on paper.
Leonard relished ocular that, particularly taking into consideration his advance to Duke. He deliberate to play games basketball upcoming highschool, however a overdue deal from Cutcliffe modified his thoughts. Leonard arrived at Duke as a three-star chance in 2021, in large part underrecruited partially since the pandemic made it tough for someone to rush visits. Requested how a participant with prototypical quarterback measurement at 6-foot-4 and 212 kilos had so few Energy 5 deals, Leonard shrugs and says with a sheepish smile, “I just wasn’t very good.”
However from the very get started of terminating season, Leonard proved he was once, in truth, superb. He threw for 328 yards and finished 80% of his passes within the season opener towards Temple, and confirmed off his athleticism as a runner, too, including 64 yards at the garden. He stabilized a place that were missing consistency since Daniel Jones‘ ultimate season in 2018 — no longer coincidentally the terminating presen Duke had a successful file.
Leonard completed with 2,967 yards passing, 20 touchdowns and 6 interceptions, and led the crew in dashing with 699 yards and 13 dashing touchdowns.
“Having a quarterback is really important,” Elko mentioned. “Twenty-one really talented players without a quarterback doesn’t win a lot of games.
With Leonard guiding the offense, and improving each week, the defense tightened up — tackling better, playing with more physicality and forcing turnovers. Duke became a Top 25 rush defense, and ranked No. 2 in the country in turnover margin — at a whopping plus-16.
“A nine-win season, that was once a results of simply dry paintings and determination and keenness for successful,” Barton said. “I feel we would possibly’ve shocked Trainer Elko a slight bit with the buy-in there.”
Nobody was happy with nine wins, though.
“We haven’t accomplished the rest but,” Leonard said. “Our purpose is to win the ACC championship and upcoming a countrywide championship. As of presently, we haven’t accomplished any of that. So some of these wins are excellent, however two decades from now, are you getting to be remembered? Are you getting to be the crew that went from 3-9 two years upcoming to win the ACC championship? That’s for us to come to a decision.”
LEONARD STANDS OUTSIDE the football facility, just in front of Cameron Indoor Stadium where the Blue Devils play basketball. He marvels at the place, even now as a Duke student, as if he cannot believe his good fortune, standing in this spot, in this moment. Maybe that is the basketball player inside him. Maybe that is just who Leonard is, sometimes awestruck and disbelieving that all of this is happening to him.
As students and teammates walk past, they all say, “Howdy Riley!” Nobody shouts, “You Suck!”
“It’s humorous, the children on campus have requested me extra about my homework project and whether or not I’ve became that during than concerning the Clemson sport,” Leonard says with a laugh, confirming that yes, he did turn in his homework and all is well in class.
Sorry @rileyleonard13_ ,
We tried! 😞
However, you are STILL A LEGEND! 😈
Now go study! 📚 pic.twitter.com/CpEdTmhQjX
— ACC Digital Network (@theACCDN) September 5, 2023
Along with Leonard, Duke returned 16 starters this season. Nearly all of them were on the 2021 roster. Redshirt senior Carter — known as “The Mayor” because he is ubiquitous around campus and is the first three-time captain in program history — chose to return because he was simply not ready to leave. Barton had offers to go elsewhere, but returned to Duke because “there’s incorrect higher status for me as an individual and as a soccer participant.” He, too, projects high on Kiper’s board, though at a different position — No. 2 among centers.
Their veteran experience has been huge. On the defensive front alone, the four starters have combined to take 4,897 snaps. On the offensive line, Duke entered the year ranked second nationally in games played and games started, behind only Florida State. At receiver, Duke returned 98.7% of its receptions from a year ago.
Elko has strategically used the portal to fill holes on the roster. He went out and signed three defensive backs who have made an immediate impact: Jeremiah Lewis (Northwestern), Al Blades Jr. (Miami) and Myles Jones (Texas A&M). Two starters on the offensive line are transfers, too: center Scott Elliott (Harvard) and proper take on Jake Hornibrook (Stanford).
But the truth is Elko has led this turnaround — and the best 17-game start to a head coaching stint in school history — with players he already had on the roster.
“We really feel like we constructed this from the garden up,” Carter said. “In order that roughly combat, chip on our shoulder got here from our paintings and particularly the whole thing we went via. Any person needed to really feel our ache, in a way, and that was once via successful ball video games. Enjoying dry, hitting dry, completing blocks, dominating blocks, making tackles, completing tackles. The whole lot we attempted to do and nonetheless do these days is simply display how dry we play games and what kind of we like the sport.”
Carter says perhaps the biggest compliment of all is the way opponents now respond to Duke. “There was once a definite disrespect we were given when groups would play games us. Now it’s grow to be, ‘Oh, you guys are difficult.'”
Elko has repeatedly made it clear he did not take the Duke job to be average. He took it because he believed he could win, and getting off to a 4-0 start this year is just the beginning.
His straightforward nature and belief in his players have gotten early results. But there are still big tests remaining on the schedule, starting with Notre Dame — a team that has not lost a regular-season ACC game since 2017. After an open date, Duke’s next five opponents are a combined 18-2.
To stock his avid gamers fascinated with making enhancements, Leonard mentioned upcoming each sport, Elko spotlights the place Duke should recuperate.
“You have about 18 to 24 hours of celebration and then you get brought down to earth again and you realize how far we have to go before we actually accomplish something,” Leonard mentioned. “It’s his own version of ‘You Suck’ and he does a pretty good job at it.”
Elko deals his personal interpretation of ways “You Suck” has come to be a defining, motivational word — no longer just for his quarterback, however for his complete crew. It even applies to him, too, upcoming ready years for his first alternative to grow to be a head educator.
“We’re something a little different,” Elko mentioned. “We maybe weren’t the highest rated kids. We probably weren’t the highest rated head coach. But we came together, and we built a very strong chemistry. We worked extremely hard. We became very tough, and that’s created a winning formula where we feel very confident every time we go out there.
“That’s one thing that’s no longer simple for the loads to select up on. The loads need famous person energy. They would like notoriety. They would like the ones issues as a result of the ones tales are a dozen more uncomplicated to gravitate to. That is in point of fact a throwback. It is a staff that simply works in point of fact, in point of fact dry and has earned their proper to be within the highlight.”
