Life for Will Shipley has been crazy ever since he blew up as a national recruit last year, and it is a new kind of wild right now with the outbreak of COVID-19 shutting down school, recruiting visits and much more. “It’s definitely been a total change,” the Matthews (N.C.) Weddington four-star 2021 running back said. “I’m still trying to stay as busy as possible. I’m not letting myself get out of schedule — schoolwork, working out, watching some film, spending more time with my family and focusing in more on my faith. I’m trying to keep my day as busy as possible.” Regarding film work, Shipley has been watching some of Christian McCaffrey’s old Stanford film. McCaffrey was the 2015 Pac-12 Player of the Year as he rushed for 2,019 yards and scored 15 touchdowns. Shipley draws plenty of comparisons to McCaffrey as a versatile running back, and not only is he watching the current Carolina Panthers’ star running back’s film to add to his own arsenal, Shipley has his offensive coordinator on. “I really liked this one double tight end set they ran and sent it over to [Weddington] Coach [Andy] Capone to see what he thinks about it,” Shipley said. “We’re constantly discussing little things like that. I’ve gone back and watched pretty much every game of my own film from last year to critique myself and see what I can better myself at for next season.”

Rivals rates Shipley as the top all-purpose back and the No. 36 overall prospect in the country. (Nick Lucero/Rivals.com)

The 5-11, 200-pounder is a film junkie. He noted that Notre Dame coaches Lance Taylor and Tommy Rees, among others, send him various videos that they’re studying to share with him. “They send me their clips that they’re watching so I can watch those and see what they have to see,” Shipley added. “We bounce ideas off each other.” On an average day during this quarantine period, Shipley is contacted about 15-20 times per day by college coaches. Text messaging has ramped up for Shipley, and so have video chats, whether it be on Zoom or FaceTime. Taylor has been recruiting Shipley very hard since offering him a scholarship back in May of 2019. According to Shipley, he catches up with Taylor probably two or three times per week over the phone and he’ll talk with Rees about once per week. Shipley has communicated a few times with Irish head coach Brian Kelly recently as well — about every other week. Taylor and Rees are starting to have more three-way phone calls with Shipley as well. “We talk about everything really — the whole recruiting process, being transparent with them and them being transparent with me,” Shipley said. “We discuss some other things as well, like Netflix and little things like that.”

Any Notre Dame fan who follows Irish football recruiting even just a little bit knows about Shipley. It’s hard to argue that there’s a more important prospect in Notre Dame’s 2021 class than Shipley. “That I’m their guy in the 2021 class — at running back especially,” Shipley responded when asked what the Irish staff’s biggest message has been to him recently. “They’ve put a lot of marbles into my basket. Coach Taylor came to Weddington four or five times last year and was at two games. He was at my school more than he was anywhere else, by far. “They’ve been letting me know that I’m their guy – I could change a lot of things and I could be a game changer.” Generally speaking, Notre Dame’s top targets in the 2021 class fall into one of three camps: 1. Recruits who already have a good idea of where they want to go so they're going ahead and committing; 2. Recruits who are pushing back their timeline and waiting the coronavirus out; or 3. Recruits who didn't plan to commit until December or January anyways so it’s not affecting them all that much. “Right now, we’re leaning towards the second camp,” Shipley said. “We’re going to try to wait this out. I know a couple weeks ago, we were leaning towards the first camp, where I was going to end it early and figure things out from there. We’re just taking it day by day and seeing how this thing is going to go. “I don’t plan to wait until October. I would put a line somewhere there in June, July or August — summertime — if it gets to that point, I could see myself drawing a line and making a decision. I want to be committed. I want to find home and this has already delayed the process. I don’t think I’m going to wait that long — all the way to summer if it does last long.” As much as Shipley wants to be committed right now as he wants to be able to focus on one school and getting ready for that college, he does want to get more visits in before making a decision.

He has only visited Notre Dame once as he made the trip up for the USC game last October, and he planned to make a return trip March 20-22. However, that was cancelled due to COVID-19. Shipley plans to officially visit Notre Dame June 12-14, but the NCAA could decide to extend its recruiting dead period through June.

“If I committed right now, I would be leaving some marbles on the table,” Shipley said. “I wouldn’t be 150 percent committed, which is what I wanted to do from the very beginning. As much as I do want to be committed and find home, I’m not there yet. I’m going to wait until I am there.” The unofficial top five schools in Shipley’s recruitment are Clemson, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Notre Dame and Stanford. He hasn’t visited Stanford yet, which he hopes to do, and he’s visited the three local schools on a few occasions. In a perfect world, Shipley would like to visit all five schools again, but he may not have the chance to get another visit in before committing. He knows a ton about each school, so what is is that he still would like to learn on another visit? “All of the logistics I’ve figured out,” Shipley said. “I know everything about the academics, running back depth and coaches. The reason I want to take these last visits is to get to spend some time with the players and the atmosphere of the locker room and spend more time with the commits. That was the main goal for these last couple of visits.” Shipley was able to speak with a number of Notre Dame players on Thursday and communicates regularly with Avon (Ind.) High offensive lineman and Irish pledge Blake Fisher. While doing these things virtually isn’t the same as in-person, it was still a neat experience for Shipley to have.