Saturday night wasn’t the prettiest game of Notre Dame quarterback Riley Leonard’s career, but it was his biggest.

Notre Dame’s offense struggled to move the ball consistently for most of the night, as Texas A&M’s defense held off any sort of scoring threat from the Irish. Junior running back Jadarian Price had the biggest play of the night, as he ran 47 yards to the house to put the Irish up 13-6 in the third quarter.

With the score tied at 13-13, Leonard shined by leading the Irish 85 yards in eight plays to take the lead at 20-13 with 1:54 to play when Jeremiyah Love made a 21-yard touchdown run.

“It tells you we have a great defense,” Leonard said. “They played great all night. We came out on top when it mattered. The last drive, everybody was confident we could go out there and score. It was just a matter of when. Finally, in the fourth quarter, we got things going and that last drive meant a lot to us.”

Leonard finished his first game in blue and gold completing 18 of 30 passes for 158 yards while running 12 times for 63 yards.

However, it was Leonard’s competitive spirit and his ability to make his team win in one of the most hostile environments in the country.

“It’s tough, especially in that environment,” Leonard explained. “That’s an environment that I’m sure none of us have ever really played in. The SEC is different. Here in Texas, it’s different. I remember looking up and trying to see the end of the stands, and you literally couldn’t even see the top. Unbelievable place to play. Very thankful for the outcome.”

Perhaps the most impressive and significant stat of the day was that the Irish didn’t commit a turnover while forcing two. It’s an important stat in any game, but playing on the road in a noisy environment makes it even more impressive, especially with the inexperience on the offensive line and new players who had never played together in a game before.

“When you have a good defense, you don’t have to compromise the ball and you don’t have to play risky,” Leonard said. “At the same time, you want to score. It’s a tough game to play. A lot of the game I felt like we weren’t that aggressive. There were no big mistakes, but there were a lot of mistakes and a lot of them were mine that I have to fix.

“In the end, it all gets neatly worked into a film and then it’s completely fine.”

The atmosphere at Kyle Field was challenging to deal with, but it was challenging to face his former head coach, Mike Elko. No one knows Leonard better than Elko, and the Texas A&M defense made life difficult at times for Leonard and the Irish offense.

“I feel like there was a game in the game,” Leonard said. “The third-down packages are always big and he got me a couple times with the protections. He came up with some really good stuff. I’ll have to watch it again.

“There’s that game within the game, the penalty kick early in the game — it’s funny because we’re playing Notre Dame against A&M, but there’s a rivalry, so to speak. It’s all love at the end of the day, but we’re both competitive.”

The win was also a statement. Sure, Texas A&M isn’t Georgia or Ohio State, but it’s a SEC win on the road and it can give a team with playoff aspirations a lot of confidence.

“Shoot, we’re a determined team and we embrace that,” Leonard said. “I think every game we play, we know we’re going to fight hard to win. I think we have a lot of talent and that complements our hard work. If we can go into this environment and beat a team that’s as well-coached as they are, it gives us all the confidence in the world to go into any environment in the country.”

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