Notre Dame Blows 2020 RB Tirek Murphy Away

Anyone following Tirek Murphy Jr.‍ on Twitter this weekend knows the 2020 New York running back was having a great time during his unofficial visit to Notre Dame.

Murphy expounded on the trip with Irish Sports Daily afterward.

“It was great,” the 6-foot, 220-pound junior said. “It was just a great day.

“I got to see everything. I got to meet all of the players. I got to see the practice, do a photoshoot. Everybody was just genuine and it just felt good to be on campus.”

The New York native made the trip with his mom, who was already high on the school coming and seems even more so now.

“My mom, she’s in love right now,” he laughed. “She’s in love.”

Murphy spent time with Joe Wilkins, Houston Griffith and Jafar Armstrong among others.

“I was with everybody,” he said. “I was just talking to them and asking them, ‘Why did you choose Notre Dame?’ They all said, ‘When you choose a school, don’t choose it because of a coach. Choose it because of the players and your brothers, the people you’ll be with for the next three or four years.’

“They were dropping some gems on me. We were just kicking it and hanging out. Joe was showing me and mother around the bookstore and I went back to his dorm room to hang out.”

The Christ The King star said the players at Notre Dame “most definitely” seem like the kind of guys he would fit in with.

“They remind me of myself,” he said. “They know how to have fun, hang out, but they also know how to work hard and stay focused.”

Murphy wasn’t surprised by the academics at Notre Dame.

“The academic stuff really speaks for itself,” he said. “Joe was telling me he’s friends with a lot of smart people. It’s just connections. You’re going to meet future millionaires and CEOs here and everything. It’s great.”

He spent plenty of time with new Notre Dame running backs coach Lance Taylor as well, going out to dinner on Saturday night and meeting to go over X’s and O’s on Sunday morning.

“He said I’m a big priority for them,” Murphy said of Taylor. “After spending time with him, he’s a very honest guy. He’s a cool coach as well. He’s young, so he’s relatable. He coached top guys like Christian McCaffrey and Curtis Samuel when he was with the Panthers. I trust him. If I come to this school, I would be able to trust him to get me to the next level.”

Taylor expressed his desire to pair Murphy with the other talented 2020 running back who was in South Bend this weekend.

“They really want to get the other running back, Chris Tyree,” Murphy explained. “They want to sign two running backs in our class. They want Chris Tyree to be the versatile speed back and they want me to be the big versatile back. That’s what he was explaining to me.”

Murphy said he and Tyree “chopped it up a little bit after practice” and would welcome the idea of pairing with Tyree in the Irish’s 2020 recruiting class.

“That would be great,” he said. “The blend of both of us would be unstoppable.

“By the time I come in, if I was to come in, we’d be playing really big-time schools. They wouldn’t be able to stop me and him together.”

Murphy was also impressed with his meeting with head coach Brian Kelly.

“He’s also a very honest guy,” Murphy said of Kelly. “He told me he’d been a head coach for 30 years and knows how to deal with the recruiting process. He said, ‘You don’t want to rush or anything like that.’ He told me to try to narrow down my list so I don’t have to rush and lose scholarships because of it. He said, regardless of where I go, I will succeed. He said I’m a huge priority for them.”

Murphy also has offers from schools like Michigan, Oregon, LSU, Duke, Miami, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Boston College and Rutgers among others.

He will be back in South Bend in a matter of months.

“I’m definitely taking an official visit, most definitely,” he said. “I want to go during the season, so I could get a gameday feel. That’s what Coach Brian Kelly was telling me. He was telling me to come during the season so I could hang out with the guys after the game and see how it is during a gameday.”

It’s hard to imagine how they Irish could have made much of a stronger impression on Murphy this weekend than they did.

“Notre Dame is definitely a top school for me. No matter what, it’s definitely a top school. I don’t want to say too much, but it’s definitely a top school.”