{"id":2145,"date":"2025-06-21T10:56:07","date_gmt":"2025-06-21T10:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/2145\/"},"modified":"2025-06-21T10:56:07","modified_gmt":"2025-06-21T10:56:07","slug":"notre-dame-lands-a-commitment-from-safety-joey-obrien","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/2145\/","title":{"rendered":"Notre Dame lands a commitment from safety Joey O’Brien"},"content":{"rendered":"

La Salle College (Pa.) Prep four-star safety Joey O\u2019Brien<\/a><\/strong> has committed to Notre Dame.<\/p>\n

A top target for head coach Marcus Freeman and his staff, O\u2019Brien chose the Irish over his top schools in Clemson, Oregon and Penn State.<\/p>\n

The 6-foot-4, 180-pound O\u2019Brien visited South Bend numerous times including his official visit over the weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust going on that official visit with the people there, the whole place, how they develop you and that degree you get there it holds so much wealth in that degree,\u201d O\u2019Brien explained. \u201cI feel like my older self (would be mad at me) if i didn\u2019t take that chance to get into Notre Dame because not everyone can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tabbed by the On3 Industry as the No. 1 recruit in Pennsylvania, the No. 5 safety and No. 40 prospect overall, O\u2019Brien becomes commit No. 19 for Notre Dame in the 2026 class<\/a> and second of the day joining fellow blue-chipper Khary Adams<\/a><\/strong>. The culture and environment Freeman and his staff have in place is what he was looking for.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just love how hard they work,\u201d O\u2019Brien said. \u201cThe brotherhood there, it\u2019s a well-oiled machine. I\u2019ve been to multiple practices. I\u2019ve been to a game. They work really hard. They get after it and they show great culture there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Notre Dame\u2019s staff and recruiting class was the difference in O\u2019Brien choosing the Irish<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien looks forward to playing for Freeman and told him on Wednesday evening he was coming to play at ND.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust a great person. Very nice. Respectful and when he talks to you, you want to go to battle for him. We did the past the torch thing (on the official visit) and he did what he does on game day, gets you fired up, this is who I want to be, this is who I want to play for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Notre Dame\u2019s defensive backs coach Mike Mickens was the lead recruiter.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow down to earth he is,\u201d O\u2019Brien said. \u201cHow when he was a player he was really like that. I hear stories about him all the time. How he\u2019d lock everyone up on the team. It\u2019s good to go to a coach that you know is really good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Notre Dame\u2019s recruiting class ranked No. 6 nationally<\/a> prior to O\u2019Brien\u2019s commitment.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust the 2026 class, they were very open with me and very cool,\u201d O\u2019Brien said. \u201cThey treated me like a family. They treated me like a commit. It felt really good there.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously with this next class, we\u2019re only going to keep getting better.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien is a two-way standout that as a junior caught 68 passes for 1,029 yards and 12 touchdowns. He added 36 tackles, 13 pass breakups and an interception.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"La Salle College (Pa.) Prep four-star safety Joey O\u2019Brien has committed to Notre Dame. A top target for…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[2922,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-2145","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-joey-obrien-26-la-salle-college","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114720996487775404","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}