Major Recruiting Starts Early For 2027 QB Trae Taylor

For Trae Taylor‍, the college recruiting process began for real even before his high school career.

The 2027 quarterback from Illinois will walk into Carmel Catholic High School with offers from Michigan, Maryland, UNLV, Marshall and Central Michigan already in hand.

“It's definitely a blessing,” Taylor tells Irish Sports Daily. “It's something I've worked hard for almost my whole life. People think it's a lot of pressure on me, but it's really not because I'm doing something I love to do and now schools are asking me to come to them. It's definitely fun.”

Notre Dame was one of Taylor’s camp stops last month.

“It was really good,” he says of his experience in South Bend. “It was high tempo. The coaches were really nice. I got to meet the quarterback coach for my first time. They already saw me at this mega camp I went to. It was really fun. Definitely one of the better camps I've gone to this year.”

Taylor enjoyed being coached by first-year Irish quarterbacks coach Gino Guidugli.

“I really liked him,” he says. “I thought that he knew the game really well. When we were on the field, he was super serious. Then when we were off the field, he would crack a joke.

“He was a coach on the field. And then a person you could talk to off the field. That's the impression I got from him. I really liked him for my first impression.”

The 6-foot, 155-pounder intends to get back to South Bend.

“They asked me to come back for a game,” he says. “We're probably going to do that.

“Next year for sure, we'll go back to a camp and then go from there, see what happens.”

It’s early, but college scouts clearly see enough potential in the youngster to start recruiting him seriously now.

“A lot of them tell me that they like how smart I am on the field, my accuracy, how I throw my deep ball, but how I can also throw underneath,” Taylor says of college coaches. “I'm definitely a good dual-threat. I run when I need to run.

“And just my personality. A lot of people don't know how to have that personality where you are on the field now, you've got to be serious, you've got to work hard all the time. It might be for fun, but you've still got to take it seriously. Then off that field, you can kind of relax, kick back, but still work when you know you need to.”

Taylor says it’s important for him to be a leader on and off the field.

The rising ninth-grader has plenty of time before he needs to pick a college, but he has an early idea of what he’s looking for.

“What's going to help me succeed in the long run, not just with football. For a lot of people, the maximum time for a lot of people in the NFL is three years. I can't live off of three years of an NFL salary, so what's going to help me off the field? What am I going to do with that degree? What school is going to help me with that.”

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