Elite Safety Ivan Taylor Is The Versatile Weapon Notre Dame Needs

This is a great example of Taylor’s IQ. You can see him reading the quarterback's eyes well, leading him to finding the post route coming from the boundary. He is a springy athlete and is able to appropriately affect the catch point leading to the pass breakup. That’s a special amount of spatial awareness and diagnostic skills from Taylor.

You can also see Taylor have the ability to play from depth and make plays ranging over the top. In this particular play, you can see Taylor working against a two vertical look.

He quickly diagnoses and locates the outside vertical to his side of the field. Taylor was playing shallow in his alignment but showcased the range to get back and range over for a big pass breakup. You can see how much confidence that Taylor has in his overall range and athleticism. He routinely disrupts and makes plays at the catch point.

Taylor is really best as a freelancer on the third level. He has an outstanding combination of instincts, overall athleticism and ball skills.

You can see Taylor locate the inside wide receiver working what looks like a corner route. He squeezes down the route, which ends up bracketing the wide receiver. Taylor is able to undercut the route and creates the interception. That’s big time stuff.

As a pass coverage player, there is a subtle balance between being true to your responsibility and being proactive to create some big plays. You can see Taylor really comfortable towing that line. His playmaking ability usually takes over in the end.

Playing as a two high safety, Taylor quickly sees a wide receiver finding a soft spot in the zone in front of him. There’s some miscommunication between the quarterback and wide receiver. The quarterback clearly wants the wide receiver to carry up the field, while the wide receiver wants to settle in the space. Taylor shows outstanding short area explosiveness to explode and make a play on the football. It leads to a big hit, a pass breakups and an interception for his teammate. That was not technically Taylor’s responsibility but he still attacks it to make a big play.

IMPACT RUN DEFENDER

When you look at Taylor, you may expect a coverage safety who lacks physicality with his lean frame. That would be a very incorrect assumption to make. In a lot of ways, that may be the area that Taylor excels most at right now.

Whether as a traditional run fitter, or running the alley, Taylor makes his impact felt constantly. He consistently reads his keys very quickly, transitioning downhill controlled and in a hurry.

You can see the patience that Taylor plays with. Too many safeties are so anxious getting downhill, and lack the confidence in their athleticism, that they miss too much in space. Taylor largely ever misses. For a skinnier frame, you can also see the underrated power that Taylor boasts. As he gets bigger, he should provide some legitimate strike as a tackler consistently.

As an alley runner, Taylor is a special player. When working inside-out, safeties must remain patient and take good angles to force to the perimeter. You will see a lot of missed tackles on the type of space, but not for Taylor.

The talented safety shows some outstanding closing speed once he diagnoses the play. Working from the inside, you can see the angle of pursuit and patience to make the play out in space. It’s a skill that a lot of college safeties, and even some NFL players struggle with. Taylor is advanced in that area.

On this particular alley play, you can see every trait you need to see from Taylor. It starts with the diagnostic skills. Once Taylor sees the play, he quickly transitions and explodes downhill.

There is no hesitation once arriving at the ball carrier. Taylor consistently gets opposing ball carriers on the ground with his combination of explosiveness and attention to detail.

Quite simply, Taylor is an outstanding all around safety. There is no limit to the amount of things you can ask of him on the field.

JUST A FOOTBALL PLAYER

It should be no surprise that the son of former Pittsburgh Steeler star cornerback Ike Taylor is a very advanced football player. From a talent perspective, everything is there. Taylor is long, he’s explosive and an overall talented athlete.

What separates him, however, is his football instincts. Taylor plays with outstanding spatial awareness and understanding for how an offense is trying to attack him. He can quickly reassess and make plays all over the field.

No matter what you ask of Taylor, he can do it and do it well. The last separator is that Taylor is an absolute dawg on the field. There is a scrappy demeanor which pops constantly. Even on special teams, you can see how aggressive and assertive he is as a player.

When you add together Taylor’s combination of length, athleticism, playmaking skills, instincts and physicality, you have a potentially special player in Taylor. He is the type of high level safety, and football player that Notre Dame needs to close on.