Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM OCT. 10, 2026 17 O'Brien is different. He is, and has al- ways been, hell-bent on maximizing it. "For him to be able to have those gifts physically, but then put the intentional work into preparing so he can now per- form what he's required to do is a re- flection of that extra work that he's put in," Freeman said. "And it showed on Saturday." 'YOU WANNA WIN? WIN' During an early recruiting visit, the O'Brien family met with then-Notre Dame defensive coordinator Al Golden. Golden talked football with Joey O'Brien, going in depth on schematics. At one point, Golden said to his dad, "Right, Mr. O'Brien?" Joe O'Brien nod- ded his head, but despite playing foot- ball himself, he had no idea what they were talking about. "We had man, Cover 1, 2 and 3," Joe O'Brien said. "I look at Joey's iPad sometimes and it's just French to me." A f te r l eav i n g t h e m e e t i n g w i t h Golden, the elder O'Brien asked his son where he learned all that. "I didn't teach it," Joe O'Brien said. "I know you didn't get it from your little league guys. He said, 'Madden.' The video game. That's what he told me." Football clearly comes easily to O'Brien. So does competitiveness, which he gets from his family. He has two older sisters: Jordan, who ran track at Saint Jo- seph's, and Taylor, who played basketball at Bucknell and Florida State and now plays professionally in Lithuania. Smith, who has known the O'Brien family since Joey was born, said an argu- ment could be made that Joey isn't the best athlete in his own house. Growing up, his sisters did not take it easy on him. "They used to beat the crap out of Joey," Joe O'Brien said. "Beat him in ev- erything. Never let him win. "My wife and I were athletes. We never let our kids beat us in anything. So Joey knew, listen, you come out here and you give it your best. Don't whine. Don't cry. Ain't nobody gonna give you nothing. We're not gonna let you win. You wanna win? Win." Joey O'Brien learned his lesson and passed it on to his younger sister, 15-year-old Tori. "It's ugly how nasty she can be now, and that's because Joey never let her win at anything," Joe O'Brien said. "And now this girl has a mean streak in her, and she's gonna be good, man." O'Brien became a transcendent high school football player, winning the 2025 Jim Henry Award as the best player in the tri-state area, as well as Pennsylvania's Gatorade Player of the Year award. He did it while playing both safety and wide receiver, and his head coach at La Sallle, Brett Gordon, thought he might even be better at the latter than the former. It was Smith who actually told O'Brien that his best fit was safety ("Like, look at your arms, dude," he said). But his extensive experience on offense is part of why his football IQ is what it is. "He understands both facets of the game," Gordon said. "He understands route combinations. He understands how to anticipate what the offense is trying to do, and I think you saw that Saturday [at Purdue] in his ability to react and get near the football." Gordon came to respect O'Brien so much that they would communicate di- rectly over text during game weeks. It was not uncommon for a late-night text to come in from O'Brien with a person- nel idea or a tidbit he saw on film. "Joey had earned with me the trust and respect that I would go to him, in certain cases, some team decisions," Gordon said. "But that was because he was just always thinking about what either he personally could be doing or things that could make our team better. "That was the norm with Joey. That was not a one-off thing here or there. It's just who he was." O'BRIEN'S 'BUILDING YEAR' As a recruit, O'Brien wanted to play as a freshman wherever he went. But his mindset shifted when he enrolled at Notre Dame in January, primarily because he saw Adon Shuler, Brauntae Johnson and Luke Talich in action for the first time. "I don't think he knew how good those guys were," Joe O'Brien said. When he found out, he told his dad that he no longer cared if he saw the field in Year 1. He considered 2026 a " building year," as his dad recalls it, and he worked to soak up everything he could from the veteran safeties while he still could. In particular, Joe O'Brien said Talich and his son, who are lifting partners and roommates on road trips, have become close. When Talich missed Week 4 with a minor wrist injury, Joey O'Brien was upset, even though it meant he would make his first career start. Talich returned for Week 5 at North Carolina, and O'Brien's response re- flected the teammate he is. "He loves being behind them," Joe O'Brien said. "I asked him how he's gonna handle this week. I said, 'Joey, you did pretty good, but Luke's back.' And he said, 'Yeah, great. I don't expect to play.' Luke's the man. He loves Luke. They're good friends, and he wants to help Luke now in any way he can." But if O'Brien did have to start again, his performance against the Boilermak- ers gave Notre Dame complete confi- dence that he would handle himself well. Not that the Irish didn't have that before his 5-tackle, half-sack performance. "I remember telling him pregame, 'Man, this is just like high school. Go play. Go play. You're ready. You're pre- pared,'" Freeman said. "Deep down in my heart, I knew he would play well just because I've seen it in practice. But it was great to see the way he performed on Saturday." O'Brien was prepared because, de- spite expecting to sit, he did more than the bare minimum in his first offseason in South Bend. Freeman said that with what little free time O'Brien had, he carved out meeting time with defensive backs coach Aaron Henry to give him- self every little advantage to perform well in practice. For his efforts, O'Brien made Notre Dame's initial two-deep depth chart. But that wasn't why he did it. "It's a job now, to be honest," O'Brien said. "With where I want to be, I want to be an All-American. I want to help this team go to the national championship. I want to help them do whatever they can. So [if] that means coming in early mornings, late nights, that's what I'm gonna be able to do." Throughout O'Brien's recruiting trips, he constantly heard from safeties coaches that the best safety on the team was usu- ally not the biggest or fastest. It was the one who studied the most and learned what the other team was going to do. That lesson stuck with O'Brien, who happens to be both. ✦