2023 TE Cooper Flanagan Excited To See Notre Dame

Cooper Flanagan‍ is getting a look at the Midwest this week.

The 2023 California tight end is taking tours of Michigan, Michigan State and Notre Dame.

The 6-foot-5, 240-pounder from famed De La Salle High School will be in South Bend on Saturday to visit with Irish tight ends coach John McNulty and tour the school.

“A couple of weeks ago, I had a call with Coach McNulty,” Flanagan says. “We had a pretty good conversation and getting to know each other.

“He was just talking about like their recruiting process, what they're looking for and asking about me and my family and what I'm looking for in a college.”

Flanagan doesn’t have an offer from Notre Dame, at least not yet, but he does hold early offers from the Wolverines and the Spartans along with a host of schools like Cal, Washington, Colorado, Tennessee and Utah among others.

“It's very cool,” he says of the early offers. “I'm very honored, but I've still got to keep working. I think most of them like how I could do both. I think I can catch and block.”

Notre Dame certainly has his interest.

“Obviously, it's a great football school,” he says. “It's got great academics. My head coach, Coach (Justin) Alumbaugh, highly suggested it.”

Current Irish defensive end Isaiah Foskey attended De La Salle and according to Flanagan, “said some good things about Notre Dame.”

“He loves the football,” Flanagan continues. “He thinks it's a great school. It's obviously kind of not a big town, which I think I like, so that's pretty cool.”

Flanagan isn’t looking to see anything specific while in town.

“I just want to see how the nice the school is and meet all of the guys,” he says.

In addition to this Midwestern swing, Flanagan will be visiting Washington and hopefully Cal soon.

He has an idea of what he’s looking for in a college.

“Academics is very, very important to me. I'm not exactly sure what I want to study, but the academics is a big, big thing. I guess the community or the brotherhood.”