Recruiting Insight Coach Damani Neal Livingstone

I have several articles featuring college coaches that I hope will answer some questions regarding recruiting. Damani Neal is the Defensive Back Coach and Recruiting Coordinator at Livingstone College in North Carolina. Neal was a Rivals 3-star recruit who committed and played at Duke University. He provides insights as a D1 recruit and as a college coach.

Bio

Neal played for Bullis High School where he played several positions before settling in at defensive back. After his college football career ended, he moved on to Florida where he obtained his Master’s degree. He moved back to North Carolina where he started coaching High School football.

College Coaching Career

Later, he transitioned to the collegiate level, coaching for Shaw University, serving as safety’s coach and special team assistant. After a coaching change, Neal found a home at Livingstone College in February last year under current head coach and former Los Angeles Rams NFL vet Sean Gilbert.

Recruiting

Although Neal mentioned incorporating more social media tools to reach more athlete, he says Twitter, by far, is the definitive recruiting platform.

“One thousand percent Twitter, and, you know, I think with me stepping into this (recruiting coordinator) role, it’s the easiest way to get in contact with us. But it’s also the easiest way to get lost in the shuffle.”

Neal said two important factors he can recommend to recruits are the first impression and having great highlight film.

“The first impression is everything,” he said. “I’m a firm believer that whether in person, virtually via Twitter, cell phone, whatever the case may be, that first message that you send to a college coach is very, very important.”

“It can’t just be a what’s up, coach, how you doing? We are looking to get straight to the meat and potatoes of who you are, what you bring to the table, and I think a lot of guys leave that out. I don’t know if it’s intentionally, unintentionally, it’s something that we really look for in that first message.”

“The majority of the time I’m looking at the 1:45, to two minutes of that tape to see, if you had the foundation to come in here and be successful and help us right away,” Neal explained.

“But if everything that I’m looking for doesn’t come until the tape is almost over then, you very well could be missing out on your opportunity.”

Film

As with all college recruiting, Livingstone relies on player highlight film to gauge interest in potential prospects.

“We don’t just offer a kid or we don’t just watch a kid’s film and then offer him,” Neal said. “In order for that to happen, you’ve got to really jump off the field and prove to us like, hey, this kid deserves an offer right now.”

“It’s really like a movie trailer,” he added, “because that that first introduction, that first glimpse of the highlight tape tells coaches, ok, yeah, this is a kid I want to add to my board…and then you can start having conversations.

“That first interaction has to really pull a coach in and draw us in. If not, you run the risk of getting lost in the shuffle with hundreds of thousands of other kids.”

What Coach Neal looks for

I asked Coach Neal what factors he looks for when evaluating a recruit’s film and what his pet peeves are.

“I hate when I see kids put interceptions on film, but they’re overthrows by the quarterback. There’s nobody within 10, 15 yards except the defense. “Yes, that’s an interception on the books, but anybody could do that; he threw it right to you.”

“I want to see you, from start to finish, you get in the stance, take your read steps, read your keys, and react to the indicator, which, majority of the time, is the quarterback of your playing zone. It’s the same thing for a pass breakup. If you got a pass breakup on your film, and the receiver just drops the ball, and you’re three yards off of them.”

“Don’t put that on your film as a pbu because I’ve been around to know you were not in position to make a play on that football.”

Neal has the same reservations about players posting tackles on their highlight film. He explains that all tackles aren’t created equally.

If you’re tackling a guy, but you’re just diving at his ankles, you’re not a good tackler, and you should not be putting that on film.

“The only position that can get away with that is if you’re playing free safety in the middle of the field and you are the last line of defense,” Neal said. “That tells me as a DB coach this kid isn’t afraid. When the moment becomes him versus a running back, one-on-one open field, and we have to keep the points off the board, he can get it done.”

Hands

One important skillset Coach Neal identified that he notices most prospects ignore is including the use of their hands when they are creating highlights.

“The way that the game is right now, there is a lot of east and west type football with stretches, the bubbles, the screens, and all that good stuff,” Neal explained. “You have to be able to work your hands or work some sort of, for lack of better terms, pass rush move and beat a block.”

“I think a lot of times young guys take that for granted and they have plays like that, but they don’t put them on the film because they don’t think it’s important.”

He added, “But again, it’s one of those things where you get to college, and it becomes a foreign language to you. It’s a little bit different or abstract because you didn’t see great value in it as a player at the high school level.”

“It’s something that, again, you cut the film, or you see a kid on the perimeter beat blocks. He’s dipping and ripping under pullers, he’s winning with his hands, keeping leverage. All that good stuff screams next level.”

Get on Coach Neal’s Radar

Livingstone uses a recruiting questionnaire to identify players and their interests. Coach Neal prefers the questionnaire over filtering through emails.

Livingstone College Questionnaire

“I know a lot of programs do that because it really streamlines recruiting for us,’ Neal said. “We don’t necessarily have to worry about checking tens of thousands of emails every day to hope that we can find, a player to come in and contribute to help us with football games.”

“If we are looking specifically for, an offensive tackle, we can filter all of our results, look at all the offensive tackles, see when we start criteria, our standards.”

“Things like have you filled out FAFSA? Are you Pell Grant eligible? Because that really outlines how deep and how far we have to go to potentially get a kid into our school.”