By Terry Boehmker
NKyTribune sports reporter
When college football’s first 12-team playoffs to decide a national champion begins on Friday, a former Northern Kentucky high school player will be one of the coaches involved in the historic event.
Highlands graduate Gino Guidugli is quarterbacks coach for the University of Notre Dame team that will take on Indiana University 8 p.m. Friday in the first of four opening round games on the new expanded playoff schedule.
As the No. 7 seed in the bracket, Notre Dame gets to host Friday’s game against No. 10 Indiana that will be nationally televised on ESPN and ABC.
“It’s exciting, obviously,” Guidugli said. “The new format and having the ability to have a home game, I think the atmosphere here is going to be electric. I’ll be glad for this thing to kickoff. I feel like we’ve been preparing for it forever.”
During the game, Guidugli will be seated in the Notre Dame Stadium coaching suite high above the field.
That’s where he’ll be in constant contact with quarterback Riley Leonard, who has 2,092 yards passing and 721 yards rushing in his first season with the 11-1 Fighting Irish.
Indiana’s defense is allowing only 70 rushing yards per game, but Leonard adds a different dimension for the Hoosiers to handle as a double-threat quarterback.
“I think any time you’ve got a quarterback that’s mobile and has run as well as he has this season that they’re going to have to account for him,” Guidiugli said.
“With his helmet mike, I’ll be able to talk to him between plays while he’s out there and then in between series we’re always on the head sets going through the last series and the expectations for the upcoming series.”
During his own playing career, Guidugli was a record-setting passer for Highlands High School and the University of Cincinnati. In college, he had 14 300-yard passing games and was the first Bearcats quarterback to throw for more than 3,500 yards in a season.
Guidugli also made his mark as a quarterbacks coach at UC when he helped develop Desmond Ridder, who was a third-round pick in the 2022 NFL Draft.
After his first season at Notre Dame in 2023, Guidugli helped bring in Leonard via the transfer portal. The 6-foot-4, 220-pound senior was the starting quarterback at Duke University the last two years.
In his second game running the Irish offense this season, the newcomer was disappointed with his performance during a 16-14 loss to Northern Illinois, but Leonard led the team to 10 consecutive victories after that.
“It was a new offense coming in for him and obviously you’re learning new terminology and getting accustomed to the players around you,” Guidugli said. “There was a learning curve there, but he’s handling things great now and anything you throw at him he picks up. He’s executing at a high level and we just want to keep improving with each game in these playoffs.”
Notre Dame vs. Indiana will be the only playoff game between colleges from the same state. The teams haven’t played each other for 33 years, but they’ll meet again in the first-ever on-campus college playoff game.
Notre Dame’s football program has a more illustrious history than their opponent, but tradition doesn’t score touchdowns or make tackles in a game.
“They’ve played good football all season long and obviously have one of the best teams in Indiana program history,” Guidugli said. “They’re going to be a challenge for us, but I think our guys are prepared. We just got to go out there and execute the game plan and be the more physical football team.”
The Irish did that very well over the last 10 weeks of the regular season to reach the playoffs. Now they’re four wins away from a national championship.
“We’ve been in this scenario since week two when we dropped one to NIU (Northern Illinois),” Guidugli said. “Every game has been a playoff game from that point on if we wanted to reach the ultimate goal at the end of season. The guys have taken that approach and prepared that way each week.”