Joey O’Brien has spent most of his football life being one of the best athletes on the field, but BYU finally gave the Notre Dame freshman a failure he couldn’t outrun.
After starting off extremely strong, he took a gut punch two weeks ago when the man he was covering caught the eventual game-winning touchdown for BYU.
O’Brien has clearly taken the loss to heart, though his teammate, Luke Talich, said he’s offering the freshman advice on moving on and getting ready for the next game.
"He’s been great. I told him right after, that play is going to define his career and it’s going to make him that much better. He obviously was disappointed. He felt like he let the team down, but it wasn’t his fault. ... Joey is an unbelievable player, unbelievable kid. He’s such a great person (who) has a great, humble heart. He’s going to be unbelievable, and that play is definitely going to make him focus that much more on the details and just lock in. He’s going to be really good from that play."
The Notre Dame veteran is doing exactly what makes South Bend's culture so good. He’s letting the freshman know that ignoring what happened won’t work for O’Brien. Instead, he needs to remember what happened and why, and use it instead.
Luke Talich says Joey O’Brien can turn BYU failure into Notre Dame football breakthrough
Players talk all the time about moving on to the next play. That doesn’t mean they really forget what happened in the last. The best players remember what happened. Instead of letting it plague them and negatively affect how they play, they build on it.
O’Brien is definitely the kind of player who can use this and get better. That’s why he ended up at Notre Dame. The safety, who is otherwise having a very solid freshman campaign, knows he has to take the field against Navy and get a little better. And then, when the Irish take on Miami, he’ll be even better.
O’Brien has always been one of the best players on the field. But even those kinds of guys will fail eventually. His talent profile is one that shows he’ll eventually bounce back.
O’Brien was a 5-star safety in the 2026 recruiting class. The 6-foot-5, 203-pound safety played for La Salle College High School in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania, before enrolling at Notre Dame. O’Brien committed to Notre Dame on June 20, 2025, choosing the Fighting Irish over Clemson, Oregon, and Penn State.
As a senior at La Salle College in 2025, O’Brien caught 85 passes for 1,250 yards and 18 touchdowns while also recording 49 tackles, four interceptions, 12 passes defended, one sack, and one fumble recovery on defense. In the PIAA Class 6A state championship game, he caught 10 passes for 99 yards, threw a touchdown pass and intercepted three passes, returning one for a touchdown, as La Salle won the state title. O’Brien was named Pennsylvania’s Gatorade Player of the Year, the MaxPreps Pennsylvania Player of the Year, and a Maxwell Football Club High School All-American.
He’s got the kind of stuff that will translate to the same kind of success at Notre Dame, as long as he takes Talich’s advice and turns his failure into success.
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