2026 LB Tristan Phillips Hopes To Stay In Touch With Notre Dame
The offer he received from Notre Dame back in March certainly helped kickstart Tristan Phillips’ recruitment.
“Everything is going amazing right now,” the 2026 California linebacker told Irish Sports Daily. “Obviously after the Notre Dame offer a few months ago, I've gotten a solid amount more and everything's been going pretty well for me.
“I've gotten a couple more great opportunities since the Notre Dame offer, and so I've been enjoying it. Now, I'm just working my ass off this summer to get ready for my junior season coming up. I'm excited for it.”
Since the Irish offer, Phillips has picked up offers from Washington, Oregon State, Cal, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas and Auburn.
“To be honest, seeing it all coming into picture, I feel like I haven't even really processed it yet,” the Ventura High School standout said. “Obviously, once it started happening, I was very grateful and happy for it, but then it kind unlocked the potential for me and kind of opened my eyes up for what I'm capable of and what I can do.
“It's kind of just turned into a dream come true. But now it's not focusing so much on dreams coming true, but working to get to the best version of myself so when I get to that college level of football, I can really go out there and ball out and get to The League and show off my talents.”
The schools that have recently offered aren’t the only ones showing increased attention.
“The University of Oregon has been after me really hard, although they haven't offered me yet,” the 6-foot-4, 210-pounder said. “But Washington, Arizona State, Oregon, Wisconsin have been after me very hard.
“There have been numerous schools, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, USC, UCLA. There are a lot of schools that are hitting my phone up and getting in touch with me and obviously some of the schools that have offered me are talking to me a lot.”
However, Notre Dame is one school he hasn’t heard from as much since a visit to South Bend in April.
“It's been kind of quiet if we're being honest,” Phillips said. “I'm hoping they're just finishing up with their 25s and getting that figured out because they were showing me lots of love before I came out, and they really liked me when I came out and talked to me after I came out. I'm hoping they reach out sometime soon.
“But if not, I'm just going to keep moving along and focusing on the schools that are showing me love and recruiting me hard.”
In addition to South Bend, Phillips has also been to UCLA, Washington, San Diego State, Arizona State, Arizona, Michigan and Ohio State this spring.
He doesn’t have any visits planned the rest of the summer as he’s focused on training at the moment, but does intend to hit the road again this fall.
“I definitely want to get out to Washington and Wisconsin,” he said. “They're two schools that have been on me hard and their atmospheres and games I've heard are absolutely crazy. Those are two priorities for us.
“Then, hopefully if Notre Dame starts recruiting me hard again, then we'll definitely get out to a game this year out at Notre Dame. Kansas has been recruiting me pretty hard too. We're trying to figure out schedules so we can get to these schools that have offered me and are recruiting me heavy.”
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