Winter Garden (FL) West Orange safety Ivan Taylor flipped from Notre Dame to Michigan.
Taylor is listed at 6'0" and 174 pounds. As a junior in 2023, he made 45 tackles, 6 tackles for loss, 1 interception, 4 forced fumbles, and 1 pass breakup.
RANKINGS
ESPN: 4-star, 85 grade, #5 S, #41 overall
On3: 4-star, 92 grade, #14 S, #132 overall
Rivals: 4-star, 5.9 grade, #11 S, #102 overall
247 Sports: 4-star, 94 grade, #2 S, #41 overall
Hit the jump for more.
Ivan is the son of former Louisiana-Lafayette cornerback Ike Taylor, who (according to Wikipedia) walked on at Louisiana-Lafayette, played some running back, and then switched to cornerback for his senior year. He made 46 tackles, 2 forced fumbles, and 8 pass breakups before being drafted by the Steelers in the 4th round (#125 overall) of the 2003 NFL Draft. He went on to play twelve seasons for the Steelers, totaling 636 tackles, 14 interceptions, and 134 pass breakups while winning two Super Bowls. (Side note: While researching Ike, I came across this article, which called him the Steelers' "worst draft pick ever." Yikes.)
Anyway, Ivan was originally committed to Notre Dame on December 1, 2023, but the Fighting Irish went on to secure the commitments of three more safeties. Meanwhile, Michigan defensive backs coach Lamar Morgan - who played at Louisiana-Lafayette immediately after Ike Taylor left - went on the offensive when hired, going hard after the younger Taylor. With Michigan's heavy pursuit combined with the Irish's overflowing safety class, the Wolverines were able to snag a commitment on July 8.
Ivan plays the role of field safety for West Orange, so he almost always aligns to the wide side of the field; that's usually where a team will play its most athletic, best defensive back. Not only do they have to cover a lot of ground in the passing game, but they need to fit into the run as well. Ivan has decent size and will probably get up to 190-ish pounds in college. He has some good change-of-direction skills, and with the right training, I think he could probably play cornerback at the next level. He's physical against the run and the pass, showing a willingness to stick his nose into tackling and to go up and fight for the ball. He has a smooth backpedal and can flip his hips; Michigan could use his skills to disguise coverages and confuse opposing offenses.
On the negative side, I would like to see him trigger a little quicker against the run and play with a little more urgency. There are also times where he seems to misjudge deep balls. As a player who might be 5'11" or so, I would like to see him get on top of routes a little more rather than counting on being a superior athlete. When he gets to college, he will encounter some guys who are 6'3" or 6'4" and won't be able to play as effectively from a trail position.
Overall, Taylor is a good prospect whom I think might be a little overrated as a top-50-ish player, but he can be a quality college player. He gives me some strong Rod Moore-type vibes due to their similar size and mentality, but Moore was ready to hit the ground running when he got to college; he was ready to support the run and had good coverage qualities. I'm curious to see how much Taylor advances during his senior year. Also like Moore, I could see Taylor getting a shot to play cornerback or nickel, but he's probably a free safety when all is said and done.
Michigan now has two safeties in the 2025 class, where Taylor joins Kainoa Winston (LINK). The last player the Wolverines landed from West Orange was wide receiver Eddie McDoom in the class of 2016.
TTB Rating: 81
Nice addition to the class even if he isn't REALLY a top 50 recruit.
ReplyDeleteRod Moore should have been top 50 though! Even at sub 6 foot Moore is projected to the 2nd or 3rd round of the NFL and the best pure safety the program has seen since...IDK when.
Depends who you call a safety I guess because Dax Hill and Jabrill Peppers were elite players who played at Nickel/Hybrid.
Note that all of the above are 6' or less, as was Sainristil. These days the taller DBs tend to end up outside at CB, though Makari Paige is a notable exception as a taller safety, he's not on Moore level, let alone Peppers/Hill.
If someone were to ask you to describe the "ideal" physical profile for the safety role, for the nickel/hybrid role, and for the corner role, what would that be? What minimum/maximum height/weight attributes map to each? (We'll assume being "fast" is a given.)
DeleteI ask this because if there was a kid who was 6'8" and was a really good athlete, would being a CB or S be rule out because that's "too tall" for the role? Of course, a coach may look at a 6'8" athlete and think he could be better utilized at WR or TE, but that's a separate discussion.
You ever see Godzilla? Godzilla would be a killer safety. Blanket half the field (at least), very strong in run defense. Power, speed, length - can't be beat. So I'm thinking ideally at least 30 feet tall and a few tons, minimum...
DeleteBut if we're talking about humans -- I'd go by what the majority of players at the position are or better yet what the best of the best are. So probably 6' 195 pounds for DBs with CBs being generally a bit taller and safeties a bit shorter.
It seems like if being 6'8 was helpful at corner (or WR or QB) or anywhere other than OT -- you'd see that. You don't. There was that guy on Purdue 20 years ago?...
The rational explanation is that football is a game where getting low to the ground is valuable. Both for offense and defense. I'm 6'3 and I can't tackle a squirrel so that's a problem if that's my job. I'd be better served if I was 3' tall, for that task. Ditto if I'm trying to block that squirrel. If my job is to win a jump ball, then I win, yes, but I'm trying to tackle here.
If passing game was as simple as winning the battle of length WR vs DB there'd be a bunch of 7 footers out there, but it isn't. Even basketball isn't that simple. There aren't even that many guys taller than me at WR or DB.
So I think the WR or TE have a different number but it's still less than 6'8 also -- so it isn't really that different of a discussion. I think it's very easy to be too tall for a position. It takes exceptional athleticism to overcome non-prototypical measurements at a position. We acknowledge this if a guy is a couple inches too short very quickly, but not if he's a couple inches too tall. That's less intuitive.
But not unintuitive entirely. I think RB is a place where it's more obvious that a taller guy is a bigger target, and thus easier to bring down -- better to be squat, powerful, and quick. Harder for all those LBs and DBs to take out your lower body. Barry Sanders is the ideal, not Lebron James or Ron Dayne. Would Barry Sanders, proportionally supersized by 30% have been a better RB? No - he would have been easier to tackle. At WR the ideal might be Randy Moss, not Victor Wembayemba (or Kareem Abdul Jabbar if you're older). At TE - where you have to be an OT on one play and a WR on the next, you want guys who are between the prototypical 6'7 and 6'1, respectively.
So yeah -- 6' is probably ideal for safety. Caleb Downs, Jabril Peppers, Rod Moore. Bigger guys can play it - Kyle Hamilton is 6'4. Smaller guys can play it - Tyran Mathiu is 5'9. But 6' seems pretty ideal. If you want to quibble by +1/-1 have at it, but safeties have to be able to cover guys lining up in the slot, be they lil WRs or big ol TEs, and they have to jump into the box and tackle Barry Sanders or Christian McCaffrey and being 6'5 isn't helpful for that.
I don't know that I would put a hard min max on it because there are outlier athletes and schematic differences. But if you want to define a general range where 80% of players will fall I would put an NFL Safety min/max range from 5'9 to 6'2. Maybe add an inch for corner max and subtract one for nickel min if you want some differentiation.
DeleteIf you want to cover 100% of people it's probably 5'7 to 6'6, which is not useful.
Not related to Taylor, per se ... just Friday morning musing ...
ReplyDeleteThere's some interesting stuff going on with Michigan sports over the next few years. We have two "new" head coaches -- Sherrone Moore for football (not really "new," but new to the permanent HC role), and Dusty May for basketball. Both seem to be high-integrity, high-empathy guys that connect with players and get the most out of them. But as we know, the proof is in the results. This coming season there'll be some wiggle room, but in years two and beyond the scrutiny dials up.
I have a generally good feeling about Sherrone Moore. In my mind the jury is still out on whether or not he'll be someone on a trajectory to be included in the "greats" of college football. But to be honest, I'm starting to wonder if even the greats in the past would have been great in today's landscape, with NIL and transfer, and all the other challenges not seen back then. My gut feel is Moore is more comfortable with the new landscape than someone older would be.
All that said, I'm bracing myself for a season somewhere between 10-2 and 8-4, with a 9-3 season being likely. That's okay. What I would wish for is the 2024 team to play competitively in all the games, winning those they should and showing good things even in the losses. What I hope does *not* happen is they make foolish mistakes to lose games in the last minutes, or for some reason not show up and lose in an embarrassing fashion.
I think Sherrone will do a good job but I also think Harbaugh is an impossible act to follow. The Byrds were a good band but they aren't going to impress a crowd who just watched the Rolling Stones.
DeleteI do think most Michigan fans have reasonable expectations for 2024 because that schedule is loaded and there is so much turnover. I hate to say it but I think it's true that Sherrone Moore is better off in 2026 and 2027 if he wins 8 games in 2024 than if he wins 12. Fan satisfaction is a function of expectations as much as results (see Ohio State football right now as an example -- one of the more unhappy fanbases in all of college football as far as I can tell).
Related to the conversation is Mgoblog Seth's take, which is that strong safety is the different position, while nickel and free safety are more interchangeable.
ReplyDelete"Michigan's free safety is a nickel—they want the SS to be a Paige so he can defend tight ends and when they motion a slot across the FS and Nickel swap jobs so FS needs to cover slots in space."
This makes some sense (wanting a bigger guy to match up with TEs) except for the fact that in 2022 RJ Moten started 10 games as the strong safety and he's 6'0. Some teams are going to use 2 TEs and some are going to use none.
You can't have your personnel be static.
Also the safeties Michigan is recruiting are usually right around 6'. Zeke Berry, Keon Sabb, Jacob Oden, etc. They're not really looking for much taller players, so it seems like Paige is the outlier here, above all else.
Maybe that's a system change though -- it does seem like Wink values a bigger safety in the mix that he can use like a hybrid LB as needed, but we'll see how that plays out. We don't have a viper anymore or an anchor, but you still want guys who can play those kinda roles. It all speaks to the value of hyrid players who offer positional versatility -- at edge, on the interior DL, in the secondary and at linebacker.