2024 ATH Tysen Smith Recaps Recent Notre Dame Trip

Tysen Smith‍ may live in Indiana, but the 2024 athlete had never been to South Bend. Well, not until this past weekend when Smith made the trip up from Bloomington to see the Irish’s game against Stanford.

“It went great,” Smith told Irish Sports Daily. “Seeing Notre Dame Stadium was a dream come true after watching the movie Rudy.

“I had a few coaches reach out to me on text out the blue, the special teams coordinator and then a few of the recruiting staffers. They reached out and were invited me. I talked to my family because you can't turn down a Notre Dame visit. That's a dream come true for really any college football fan.”

And it didn’t disappoint.

“It was definitely one of the cooler visits that we've been on,” he said. “They took you in, they did your measurements and everything in the practice facility, the indoor. Then, they had Xboxs everywhere. They had VR, ice cream, they had food trucks. Pretty much anything you could think of, they had it.”

The 6-foot-3.5, 230-pounder already has offers from Indiana, Minnesota, Toledo, Western Michigan and Indiana State.

Smith and the other visitors had the chance to watch the Irish players go through The Walk before the game.

“It was really cool to see all the fans together; probably one of the biggest fan bases I've ever seen,” he said.

“Then, we went back and kind of hung out, got some more food, listened to one of the team moms talk to the parents about the process, the recruiting process, and after the commitment process and everything. That was cool.

“Then we listened to some players and ex-players talk, which is really cool getting to find out what Notre Dame Football was in the offseason, during the season, game days, academics, balancing academics and everything like that, the kind of accountability with the whole team. I really just got a good feel for what Notre Dame's really all about, that was really cool.”

Smith has already taken visits to Minnesota, Purdue, Duke, Cincinnati, Western Michigan and Northern Illinois this fall.

He’s planning a return trip to Minnesota along with stops at Kansas and Kansas State.

Smith could help on either side of the ball in college, either tight end or defensive end/linebacker.

“I have a few offers as just an athlete,” he explained. “I think Western Michigan has me as an athlete. I think NIU has me as an athlete. I think Toledo has me as a tight end. Indiana has me as a that Bull spot, so that kind of outside backer/rush end, same with Minnesota. They kind of had me as the hybrid end/bull.

“Then some other schools, Kansas has me as a d-end and Tennessee has me at tight end. It kind of just goes back and forth. Some schools are looking me as both, some have a plan for me. A lot of this happens when I get to campus and they see me in person. That's kind of how they make their decisions and off the film of course.”

As far as Notre Dame goes, Smith is just hoping to continue grabbing their attention.

“Hopefully, I can just build a highlight tape that will get me more in front of the coaches to impress them more. I feel as if they need to see more film and see more of what I can do. I think me providing the highlight tapes and all that for them would be the next step.”

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