You want some good news about the Irish football program? Well boy howdy do we have some for you. Potential five-star safety Ivan Taylor became the second member of Notre Dame’s 2025 defensive back class today when he announced his commitment to the Irish. The 6″0″, 174-pound Floridian bears a last name that many fans may associate with defensive prowess already – his father Ike was a standout cornerback for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Taylor camped at Notre Dame this past summer, an experience that clearly sparked a good deal of interest given how his recruitment progressed from there. He set a visit for the Pitt game and – even though Pitt was there – enjoyed himself enough that he almost immediately set up another visit for the Wake Forest game a few weeks later. That was the point where pro-Notre-Dame buzz really started to grow for this elite target. He did take a few other visits this fall but openly talked about how the Notre Dame staff, and particularly safeties coach Chris O’Leary, set the bar for him. He gave these quotes in a 247 article (free) about a month ago:

When I interacted with the coaching staff, it’s like they’re my best friends. I can talk to them about football, life, and have great conversations with them… Coach O’Leary and I have a great relationship. As soon as I met him, I feel like we already had a connection. I would play for him all day, without a doubt.

Recruiting Service Rankings

247Sports Composite — 4 star (.9665 rating), #62 overall, #6 S, #9 in FL

On3 Consensus — 4 star (92.67 rating), #98 overall, #10 S, #16 in FL

The 247 Composite and On3 Consensus both combine 247, On3, Rivals, and ESPN rankings.

247Sports — 4 star (93 rating), #35 overall, #5 S, #5 in FL

On3 — 4 star (90 rating), #172 overall, #15 S, #25 in FL

Rivals — 4 star (5.8 rating), #134 overall, #14 S, #20 in FL

ESPN — 4 star (85 rating), #30 overall, #5 S, #4 in FL

Friend of the Stripes Jamie Uyeyama does the recruit evaluations for ISD, and we trust his evals as much as anyone’s. So while the 247 Composite and the On3 Consensus don’t factor in ISD evals, we put a lot of weight on them ourselves.

Irish Sports Daily — 4 star (93 rating)

Note: ISD only ranks the top 50 prospects in each class, and hasn’t ranked 2025 yet. Based on past classes a 93 rating would be just outside their top 50.

Cohort

In addition to Notre Dame, Taylor holds offers from Alabama, Florida, Florida State, Miami, Michigan, Penn State, USC, and Wisconsin, among others.

Highlights

This is some fun tape, man. Probably my favorite takeaway is that Taylor plays more like a corner that can hit than a linebacker who can run. His coverage skills, in keeping with his pedigree, are very good – good enough that I think O’Leary might have to fend off Mike Mickens to keep Taylor in his position group. At the very least I could definitely see Taylor being very good as the slot defender in a three-safety nickel. His backpedal is really smooth, as is his ability to flip his hips and run deep. His downhill burst out of his backpedal is explosive. As a run defender he plays bigger than his size – I let out an audible “whoa” for the hit he landed at the 1:01 mark. He gets his hands on the ball a good amount too. About the only real nit I can pick is that he’ll definitely need to fill out a little to be a safety at the next level. I’d like to seem get closer to 200 pounds and see if he retains all that fluidity and explosiveness.

Impact

One thing we know is that there will be opportunity in the Irish secondary. By 2025 Ben Morrison will (almost assuredly) be gone. Jaden Mickey might be too. At safety, Xavier Watts will definitely be gone. Adon Shuler (who played some this year and was decent) will be a junior and might be the only established talent available. Brauntae Johnson, Taebron Bennie-Powell, and Kennedy Urlacher will be sophomores, but questions abound there – most notably, Johnson has been mostly a receiver to date and Urlacher is already big and a move to linebacker may be inevitable.

However everything works out Taylor will likely have a shot to push his way into the two deep right away if he’s good enough and he’s physically ready. I think that’s possible but very hard to project given all the variables at play. What’s easier to project in my opinion is that Taylor has very high upside as a future elite starter, and is one of the better natural free safety prospects the Irish have landed in a long time.

Welcome to the Irish family, Ivan!