After starting one career game for NC State in which he threw two picks and completed only 37% of his passes, the quarterback went to the office of the coach.
Leary made a declaration that was both aspirational and asinine.
"We're going to win the game," he exclaimed.
The next game, Leary failed to throw a touchdown pass and the trajectory of how far he needed to go to become a top-flight college quarterback began to form as a result. Spending more time in the NC State football offices earned the false swagger and confidence that needed to be replaced.
He had said he would lead a team that could beat the tigers when he committed to NC State. Leary's dad was the president of the local youth league in New Jersey, and he was a big fan of football. His friends looked at him cross-eyed when he said he could go on to college and win a football game.
It was unlikely that that statement would be made. After winning a national title, the Tigers lost 15 of 16 games to them. He didn't know how far he would have to go to get them there, since he was a third-stringer and had lost his starting job.
Last season, Leary broke out as one of the country's top quarterbacks, throwing 35 touchdown passes, just five turnovers and becoming one of the best quarterbacks in NC State history. The best quarterback in the country could enter the high-end NFL draft conversation, as Doeren cites his cannon arm and portfolio of production when arguing he's "the best quarterback in the country."
NC State quality control coach Kriss Proctor refers to him as "piss missiles" because of his large stature.
"He's got as much arm talent as I've ever seen," says Missouri coach Eliah Drinkwitz. He has Josh Allen arms.
In 2021, the rocket arm and ambition collided. NC State snapped an eight-game losing streak to the Tigers with a 27-21 double-overtime win over them last season.
He is described as a personality paradoxes by his family. He cares a lot about his appearance. He won't be able to sit at the family dinner table facing the glass sliding door because he looks at himself too much while getting his hair cut on a two week trip home. He mocks the athletes who feel they need to post their workouts on social media and is ambivalence about social media.
He needs to change the way the country sees him and NC State.
The final stage of a career that has spanned the canyon from arrogant high school kid to Heisman hopeful has been completed by NC State's first Atlantic Coast Conference title in 37 years. The NC State Wolfpack are ranked 13th in the preseason and return 18 starters.
Along the way, he could close the gap between himself and other players in the draft conversation.
Leary has accumulated enough wins and credibility to make bold predictions now that he knows more about quarterback play than he did previously.
It could be the best team ever to come through NC State.
There is a basketball hoop on the lawn of a home in a well-manicured neighborhood in New Jersey. It is hanging under the weight of too many games.
There are signs on the kitchen wall that tell the story of the ethos that the second of five siblings, Andrew, was raised with. A couple of people greet a person with quick smiles and quick wit.
Glen is a divorce attorney who makes fun of his work.
There are signs on the wall near the kitchen.
Our family is a great sitcom.
Life is short and you still have teeth.
There is beer.
The extent of the family's commitment to football is quickly revealed. Glen is the son of a long time youth coach and the brother of a high school coach. For 15 years, Glen was a key figure with the Gloucester Township Stallions, not the Lions. He was the coach of the 11- and 10-year-old team. Why is that old? He said that they are not too old where they won't listen.
Leary is from a family that doesn't take football seriously. A few years after arriving at NC State, their son confessed at a family breakfast. He said hello one morning before he said anything else.
The story of the birth of his sister, Shannon, who is now a senior at the University of Florida, can be summed up by the background that cultivated Leary being able to close the gap between established and aspirational stars.
Lorie: She was born during a championship game. I forgot about that. I was home. I waited for him to come home.
Did he leave early?
Glen: No, we finished the game.
In South Jersey, the Philadelphia Eagles are the favorite team in the National Football League. He was a fixture at Gloucester Township youth games as well as his uncle's high school games.
His sisters were cheerleaders at the youth games, and it wasn't uncommon for them to log double-digit hours on the weekends. The concession stand was selling crab fries and cheese sticks.
The best prospect in the group grew up in his home. There was a question of which arm the young man had. He may have thrown that way. There wasn't a glove for a left-handed pitcher when he threw a baseball with his older brother. He thought he was going to be right-handed the rest of his life.
There are eighth- grade highlights that still exist on the internet. There's enough frozen ropes and connected go routes to overshadow the modest cinematography and occasional pole blocking a touchdown, despite the numberless fields and mismatches, thanks to Leary posting them himself.
Glen recalls multiple private schools recruiting him, even though they were 25 miles away in Philadelphia. He stayed home and followed his friends to the local public school, where he was attracted to following his friends and playing for his coach.
His father's dedication to youth football in Gloucester Township laid the foundation of football and expectation of work ethic, and that decision grounded him further in the community.
He said that his father put in a lot of time and effort. He's made an impact on a lot of children's lives. I don't know how much I appreciate my father. He's my hero.
Hinson's Timber Creek program embraced the chaos of an up-tempo spread while operating with strict discipline, which accelerated the development curve of the man.
Hinson was in the Air Force for 25 years. Hinson said that they had no fun and no visors. Everyone had shoes. When people go to college, the joke is the most joyful day of their lives.
Hinson had the entire team do 150 up-downs in the mud before a three-and-a-half-hour bus ride after a player showed up late to the hotel lobby. After a 41-0 win, Hinson wasn't happy with the performance and the team did 100 up-down on concrete. They wore their pads on.
The results were followed by a lot of hard work. As a junior and senior, Leary won the state player of the year award. The way for his football life to continue beyond South Jersey was paved by his arm talent, devastating offense and strict discipline.
"That's what the standard is," Leary said. He kept us to that. He made us do that. The way he coached our team disciplined me for the rest of my life, it was the best decision I could have ever made.
He was able to achieve both success in college and the required diligence due to the high school experience and his upbringing.
It almost didn't happen there. He was at his home visit six months after he committed. The night that Doeren was considering taking the Tennessee job, Eliah Drinkwitz was in the living room. The news of Doeren's possible departure was broadcasted on the bottom line.
The moment provided a fitting chaotic culmination of a recruitment that began with a first scholarship offer from then-Temple coach Matt Rhule. When the call came, Leary hung up the phone and asked what the offer was.
Legal instincts took over from there. To show how it unfolded, he pulls out a brown folder with a quarterback "depth charts" written on it from the snack stand. Each school had a sheet with who they offered and when.
The priority of his son's recruitment was what mattered to Glen. Glen did the same thing with the younger son, who chose to play quarterback at Illinois.
Glen had NC State, Penn State, BC. I was doing the same thing for everyone.
He camped at Penn State before his junior year and was one of three quarterbacks called up by James Franklin after he performed well. The family waited two hours outside of Franklin's office to watch the two men leave.
The pep talk didn't sit well with Leary. He narrowed his focus to NC State, Maryland, and Pitt. They called back when Fields decided to leave Penn State. Leary didn't say yes.
He kept his discipline when Doeren was flirting with Tennessee. He would end up making history with his teammates as a result of that reinforcement. The first step towards the history they are trying to make is when they doubled down on each other.
"I'm really, really lucky that I didn't make a different move because of what I was reading," he said. Everything worked out.
Leary drives through NC State's campus in a vehicle. After finding a reliable ride, he says that Lili changed his life.
He didn't have a car when he was a student. 6 a.m. is his scheduled time He tried to navigate the spread out logistics of NC State's campus. He bought his teammate's Acura for over $1,000, a lemon with a bad front tire that collapsed twice while he was driving.
Leary has become the face of NC State, but the ride hasn't been straight. He didn't mesh with the coaches, dug his way out of the third string, lost his starting job, and broke his fibula in the middle of the season. Finding joy in the work required for smooth trips in the pocket was the last step between reality and ideal.
He cares too much and that's why there's a criticism of him. He's going to sit at his locker after practice and stare at the film of bad plays on his phone. Before he arrives to meet his family, he will often watch critical parts on film. The coaching staff admits that Leary spends more time in the facility than they do.
He was thrown in with the first team in practice and quickly realized he was behind. His first pass was thrown in the air. He was pulled by Drinkwitz for performing poorly. He was unable to argue with him. After sliding back in, he completed his next four passes, throwing the ball around the field.
That was a turning point in my life. What did you think about football? It's easy to take a back seat and wait until next year. Even if you are third string, how are you going to prepare like a starter?
The year went on and there were more realizations to come. He knew his talent wouldn't be the same as it was in high school. He was eager to play immediately but was grateful for the time he had to learn by example.
He realized that he had to understand defenses before he could do anything. I don't think my arm strength will be enough to get me by. I need to know more about defenses.
Tim Beck called the team together early in the second spring practice of NC State's first season in the Atlantic Coast Conference and stunned Leary with his surprise. Beck said they were not having any fun. "Alright, let's leave." The team is a good one.
After practice, Leary walked off the field with Beck and he asked why he didn't yell at them.
It wasn't a good year for Leary as NC State failed to win a game and he didn't do much to promote himself as the quarterback of the future. NC State lost all five of their starts. The NC State offense was going to get a lot of work.
Beck was hired by Doeren to realize how to harness Leary's competitiveness.
Beck found that the quarterback group had been battered by the lack of success and the vibe of the prior offensive staff.
He was told that he needed more guidance and encouragement because he was so devoted to football. Beck said that if he had a bad practice, he would watch it. "He's going to ask, what about play eight?" He will not be able to fall asleep. The man is driven by it. He's a big fan of it.
He focused on his development as he continued to grow. The process of changing his throwing motion is a lengthy one.
He changed from a long windup to a shorter front step so he could throw more quickly. He was like a jugs machine, throwing piss missiles and frozen ropes. He had to pass the ball to someone else. It is hard to learn to throw with touch when you throw as hard as he does.
Along with the motion change, Leary changed his study habits to get to the level that he observed. He comes to the NC State football offices on his own, wearing a Dodgers cap and carrying a remote.
Leary watches a few games on Sundays. Mondays are for traditional first- and second-down looks, Tuesdays for all the third-down situations and Wednesdays for red zone drills. He will watch another game or two on Thursdays now that he has a better idea of what the coordinators does.
The commitment to doing this on his own for hundreds of hours added up to having the correct understanding of the game. The kind of work you can't post on social media is what cost Leary his job.
Patterns are what come down to being a chess master or hitting a baseball. You make decisions based on patterns. Thousands of hours of looking at something and learning something made that happen.
Leary's path to fame became clear when the patterns became clear.
A play from last year's opener, a 45-0 win over South Florida, will be shown by Proctor.
Teams usually play two deep safeties against NC State's vertical routes. Rarely does a quarterback throw against that look. The distance the ball has to travel is too much to allow the safety to recover and find it.
Three or four times last season, Leary threw the type of throws that made offensive coordinators cringe. The bomb against the Bulls traveled 52 yards in the air to Carter. The throw was more impressive because it traveled at least 70 yards and was thrown from the left side. "I've never coached someone who can throw that ball," he said. He's not the same.
One of the things that Leary is proudest of is how he got there. With his younger brother arriving at Illinois this summer and likely to be the third-string quarterback, Leary has offered advice through experience.
Both paths were broken down by him. He said that if you want to go to school and hang out with your friends, that's fine. He was like, "There's a whole other side that you can do, and you can get to this point where he's at now"
When they were home in 2020 they were able to work out during the COVID-19 epidemic, and one of the ways to do that was to beat Clemson.
The goals are bigger now that Leary has won a game. He hopes that this will be the best team in school history and that he will be a top draft pick.
According to a few of the scouts who projected him between the 3rd and 5th round, they want to see him process faster and make better decisions. There are a lot of quarterbacks in front of him, but there is also a path to the first round paved by a South Jersey native. Pitt's Kenny Pickett won a league title, lit up the ACC and took the culmination of all he'd learned to do in five years.
One of the biggest variables in the draft is team success. Living up to his latest bold declaration would lead both NC State football and his own draft stock into the spotlight.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
