Duke QB gets oddly sweet text message before games

A starting quarterback for a university’s football team, especially an ACC university’s football team, might have a lot of a lot of people boosting his ego. Duke quarterback Riley Leonard has a remedy for that, a two-word motto to help keep his ego in check.

You Suck.

Leonard wristband with “You suck” written on it. As if that wasn’t enough, he’s also asked has his mother send him a text message with the same two words before every game. She has obliged.

Athletes will often have an inspirational message or something like an uplifting bible verse somewhere on their person during a game. The negative messages tend to be posted on bulletin boards and generally come from opponents or members of the media. They usually don’t come from family members and certainly don’t come from family members.

So, football fans not only took notice of Leonard’s mom sending him such a message but found plenty to joke about.

Jokes on Riley. My mom says this to me without me even asking. https://t.co/98Z8nd1UVw

— Nick Case’s Birthday Month (@Nick422) September 5, 2023

The message seemed to work well for Leonard a season ago. In his first year as Duke’s full-time starter, Leonard completed 63.9% of his passes for 2,967 yards with 20 touchdowns and six interceptions. He added 699 rushing yards and 13 touchdowns.

Perhaps Leonard will be a trendsetter. For him anyway, we can’t argue with the results.