Notre Dame caught a rather important boomerang in its 2021 class when blue-chip cornerback Philip Riley announced his re-commitment on Tuesday. His recruitment was a bit of a roller coaster that might normally raise some red flags, but when you add context to it it’s much less worrisome. A brief timeline:

  • Riley, a Florida resident and Washington native, is reportedly ready to commit to Virginia Tech without visiting in late April.
  • Notre Dame makes a big late push and, with an assist from Riley’s own efforts to reach out to current students, lands his commitment without a visit in early May.
  • Rumors begin to swirl in September about a potential decommitment, with Riley removing Notre Dame references from his Twitter bio; USC and Washington are the rumored potential destinations.
  • Riley flips to USC without visiting in late September.
  • Just short of two months later, Riley flips back to Notre Dame.

Quite a ride… The first bit of context that helps explain all that is that, of course, we’re in the middle of a pandemic with severe travel and official visit restrictions. Riley is far from the only kid who has committed to a school without visiting, or even the only kid who has done so with multiple schools. The 2021 kids are in a really tough spot as they have a far more limited opportunity to evaluate schools in person than in previous cycles. I don’t blame any kid who waffles under those circumstances.

The second bit of context is that he just took an independent visit to Notre Dame with his stepfather while the football team was out of town. Purposefully, as he wanted to see what the campus was like without football. Before he committed to the Irish the first time, he reached out to current students on Instagram to ask them what life was really like. He’s an interesting kid who takes a unique approach to his research, obviously. That visit was a key part of counteracting some of things he had been told by other schools, as covered in quotes from 247’s Tom Loy in this free article:

From what I’ve been able to gather, his decision to look around elsewhere and eventually de-commit had a lot to do with negative recruiting and to be quite honest, it seemed to work and it hit home… Irish Illustrated has learned through sources that the Irish coaching staff was relentless in not only making it clear that Riley was very coveted by the coaches, but also with making sure he knew that what he was told by others was not accurate.

I wouldn’t get too fired up over negative recruiting by other schools; that’s part of big boy football. I would get fired up over Mike Mickens overcoming it to flip a good prospect back to the Irish.

Recruiting Service Rankings

247Sports Composite — 4 star (.8994), #300 overall, #25 CB, #42 in FL

247Sports — 4 star (91 rating), #233 overall, #17 CB, #30 in FL

Rivals — 4 star (5.8 rating), #241 overall, #24 CB, #38 in FL

ESPN — 4 star (80 rating), NR overall, #20 CB, #56 in FL

Irish Sports Daily — 4 star (91 rating)

Cohort

In addition to Notre Dame, USC, Washington, and Virginia Tech, Riley holds offers from Clemson, Florida State, Iowa, Louisville, Miami, Michigan State, Oregon, Penn State, and Texas, among many others.

Highlights

For film review and impact, I’ll point you back to Eric’s original commitment write-up in May based on junior film – Riley hasn’t given us any reason to think those initial observations were off-base. More of a production comment here, but I really like what he did with his senior video. The captions give context to the plays, for one, but also I like that they show him one-on-one with solid competition a couple of times; it gives you a much better feel for his cover skills. Also, I 100% agree with Eric’s thoughts that Riley could contribute early. For you DCE fans, it’s also worth noting that he could end up at either boundary corner or safety, depending on development and who else rounds out the class.

Welcome (back) to the Irish family, Philip!