Patriots rookie Drake Maye hypes up Notre Dame star Riley Leonard over latest IG dump: "That guy"

Notre Dame quarterback Riley Leonard came to South Bend with a lot of hype after his stellar 2023 season with the Duke Blue Devils. Although he got the starting quarterback role, he struggled with passing throughout the season despite putting together strong rushing performances.

On Tuesday, he posted pictures on Instagram of himself and the Fighting Irish team from Week 4's 28-3 win against the Miami Red Hawks. He captioned the post:

"Proverbs 27:17 #GoIrish."

Former North Carolina Tar Heels and now New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye hyped up Leonard.

"That guy," Maye wrote in the comments.

Leonard's IG comments

Riley Leonard retains Marcus Freeman's confidence despite struggles

Big things were expected of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and their quarterback Riley Leonard after they beat the Texas A&M Aggies in College Station in Week 1.

The Fighting Irish followed that up with a shocking 16-14 home loss to the Northern Illinois Huskies, which drained all the goodwill that they had gotten. Despite a 66-7 obliteration of the Purdue Boilermakers, doubts had set in about their credentials.

During his postgame news conference after the game against Miami, Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman addressed the fans booing Riley Leonard during the game.

“I didn't ask [Leonard] about how he feels about people booing him … We can't perform to … make sure everybody cheers for us, all right. That's a part of the game, right? Freeman said.

"If you don't do your job, people are going to boo you. But if you let that affect the way you go out and execute the next play, then man, you're not the right person for this job or to be our quarterback at Notre Dame,”

Leonard has had a mixed season, registering 334 rushing yards resulting in six touchdowns and 587 passing yards resulting in one touchdown.

The game against the Red Hawks was the quarterback's best performance. He went 16-of-25 for 154 yards and a touchdown while adding 131 yards resulting in two touchdowns on 11 carries.

Despite his quarterback's mixed statistics, Freeman highlighted his confidence in Riley being the right quarterback for his team.

“I don’t know how many yards Riley led [Notre Dame’s] offense to through rushing and passing, but there’s always parts to clean up, Freeman said. "And we’ve got to continue to look at the mistakes that he made and say, ‘Okay, how do we do a better job of not putting him in a position to make mistakes, and where was the disconnect?’"

"But we’ve got a lot of confidence in our quarterback that led us to a great victory today.”

Replacing Sam Hartman as Notre Dame's quarterback was challenging, and Leonard is finding out the pressure of being the Fighting Irish's quarterback.