Michael Clubb, USA TODAY Sports
Oct 21, 2026 3:15 PM
Fresh off a dominant return from injury, the elite defensive back cements his status among college football's best as the Irish prepare for a high-stakes November stretch.
We're past the halfway point in the 2026 college football season which means a lot of the postseason awards and All-America teams start releasing their midseason watch lists. Today, star cornerback Leonard Moore was named to the Sporting News Midseason All-America team. The star cornerback was deemed the best returning cornerback in college football this season and has lived up to that reputation for the majority of 2026 thus far.
Moore was named a 1st-team midseason All-America selection. The 6-2, 197-pound Texas native has been targeted 13 times this season through five games. Moore missed the Stanford game with a concussion but returned in their matchup with BYU this past weekend in Notre Dame's 28-24 road loss in the battle of two unbeaten, Top 10 teams. Moore looked a little rusty in his first game back from a concussion, but the bye week should prove beneficial to get him back up to speed in preparation for their big test on November 7.
The star defensive back was a Unanimous All-American last year and is putting together a solid campaign to repeat that honor in 2026. So far this season, Moore has four pass break ups and eight solo tackles. The Texas native has also been named to the Wuerffel Trophy Semifinalist list and to the AllState AFCA Good Works Team. The star corner will also likely make the semifinalist list for the Bronko Nagurski Award, the Jim Thorpe Award and several other midseason All-America teams.
Moore will be key in Notre Dame's defensive turnaround after their let-down performance against BYU. Still, the Irish rank 5th in the country in scoring defense, 1st in the country in total defense, 3rd in the country in rush defense and 15th in the country in pass defense. Make no mistake about it, this is still a dominant unit on paper, but they'll be put to the test in November.
Two of the three best passing offenses Notre Dame will face come in November of this season with the No. 1 ranked Miami Hurricanes coming to town on November 7 and the No. 23 ranked SMU mustangs headed to South Bend on November 21. They're going to need the Sporting News Midseason All-American to be at the top of his game, especially with his matchup against the Hurricanes and Malachi Toney, another fellow Sporting News Midseason All-America selection.
Miami quarterback Darien Mensah was also named to the Sporting News Midseason 1st Team All-America team. North Carolina defensive tackle Xavier Lewis was a 1st-team selection as well. The Irish squared off with Lewis the first weekend of October and walked away with a 37-26 victory.
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