Vanderbilt Commit Collin Flanigan Grew up Watching Tyrann Mathieu. Now he Hopes to Have a College Career like him.

For as long as Collin Flanigan’s father can remember, he’d walk upstairs to his son’s room and find him watching former LSU safety Tyrann Mathieu’s highlights.

If Mathieu was anything, he was rangey and physical. He wasn’t afraid to show it on tape, either. Flanigan was just a kid back then, but his old favorite player is easy to guess based off of his film.

“I’m physical,” Flanigan told Vandy on SI. “I think I’m really long, lengthy. I’m fast. I’m fast. I can cover. I can play anything in the secondary. I play a little wide receiver, too. I’m gonna play a lot of wide receiver this year, too. I’m just like a really good athlete.”

Flanigan developed his physicality as a kid when he got his start as a football player as a defensive end before ultimately becoming a secondary player. The three-star Vanderbilt commit now plays cornerback and wide receiver and projects to end up somewhere in the defensive backfield for Vanderbilt.

The 6-foot-2, 170 pound rising high school senior is open to a future at corner or safety depending on what the Vanderbilt staff decides his best position is long term. They see traits that could translate to either position.

“They said they like how physical I am a lot, my length too,” Flanigan said. “I developed that really young, when I first started playing I was a defensive end so I was always really physical.”

“Coach Lea and coach [Jamaal Richardson], just their vision that they had for me, I really liked what they talked about.”

Part of that vision may include Flanigan having to sit and wait his turn in the defensive backfield for a season, but he’s bought in on what Lea and Richardson are selling him at this point. The pair was crucial in orchestrating Vanderbilt’s 7-6 2024 season in which it saw a five-win increase.

Flanigan wasn’t in Vanderbilt’s 2026 class until June, but was inspired by the turnaround season that Vanderbilt had.

“I’m really happy for them,” Flanigan said. “They’ve been working. I know with all the coaching staff that was just the goal; winning. So I know that [that season] is going to be a big thing and we’re gonna keep that going. I think we’ll have a really big impact.”

Flanigan’s 2026 class is Lea’s highest ranked as Vanderbilt’s head coach.

His group will come in after the inevitable departures of Diego Pavia and Eli Stowers. It won’t all be on Flanigan’s back, but he’ll be a piece of a class that will be a significant piece of keeping the standard that those two underdog veterans instilled.

“They did tell us that this is going to be a big class,” Flanigan told Vandy on SI. “We still got a couple of people that we’re targeting, but for the most part we’ve got a lot of the people that we want. I think it’s going to be fun. I think we do have a really good class coming in.”