Four-star recruit Latrell Neville, a wide receiver from Missouri City, Texas, has committed to Nebraska.
Neville is rated as a 4-star recruit on Rivals.com and a 3-star on 247 Sports and ESPN. He decommitted from Virginia Tech on June 6 after being committed for a month.
Neville played his first two seasons of football for Willowridge High School in Houston, Texas. During his sophomore year, Neville had 315 total receiving yards, 17 catches and 10 total touchdowns, according to Max Preps. He averaged 18.5 yards a catch.
He transferred to Hightower High School in Missouri City for his junior year, during which he had 30 receptions for 276 yards, an average of 9.2 per catch.
Hightower head coach Joseph Sam believes Neville will continue to improve into his senior season.
“If we’re able to play, I think he’s going to have a breakout [season],” he said. “He’s going to show people just a small piece of the upside that he has because I think Latrell is an extremely gifted athlete.”
Neville has over 40 offers from Division I Universities and picked Nebraska over Oklahoma, Texas, LSU and Ohio State.
#COMMITTED pic.twitter.com/HsIhcQAeCF
— S E V E N (@LatrellNeville7) July 4, 2020
“That’s a freakishly good problem to have, in my opinion, a kid that’s truly 6”4’, 190 pounds who can run like the wind with ball skills and he’s just now learning how to be a complete receiver,” Sam said.
Mike Schaefer, a recruiting analyst for 247 Sports and cohost of Recruiting Hour on 93.7 The Ticket, believes it was important for Nebraska to get Neville’s commitment before his senior season.
“In a year which teams aren’t able to go out and do camp evaluations and are not able to recruit on the road, you’re gonna see some heavy emphasis on senior film,” he said. “A team like Nebraska, I think, wants to get that commitment, get their relationship really firmed up before teams are going to get an opportunity to become really interested in somebody like Latrell Neville.”
Greg Smith, the recruiting analyst for Hail Varsity, thinks that Nebraska needs wide receivers who can compete in the Big Ten Conference.
“Even the teams in the Big Ten that are just okay on defense are still pretty good, like comparatively nationally, right?” he said. “So you need to be able to have wide receivers that have size-speed combination and Neville has that.”
Neville’s size and speed will help him compete in the Big Ten and so will his experience playing against highly recruited players in high school.
“He gives them [Nebraska] not only a jump ball threat but a vertical threat as well,” Sam said. “He’s fast enough to get by Defense and on film with teams we play in the state of Texas. He’s running by guys that are highly recruited as well.”
Neville is also equipped to compete at Nebraska.
Coach Sam describes his offense as “fast and explosive” during an interview on Dave Campbell’s Texas Football. Scott Frost, the Huskers head football coach, is known for running an offensive that is also characterized as “fast and explosive.”
In addition to having experience with fast-paced football, Neville also chose to wear the ‘N’ on his helmet because he is a “relationships kid” according to his head coach in high school.
“He wants to number one, he wants to have a relationship with whatever school, whatever coach is going to be coaching him, he wants a relationship with that person,” Sam said. “Number two, he wants to have a chance. He just wants to have a chance to have opportunities to impact and help his team win because, at the end of the day, Latrell cares about winning more than his statistics.”
Because building relationships is crucial to Neville, Coach Sam also sees a lot of leadership qualities in him.
“I think as he grows older, he’ll eventually grow into the leadership role, but Latrell is kind of one of those guys [who] wants to build relationships with his teammates before he starts trying to lead them,” he said.
Sam, who has known Neville for only a year and a half, thinks he will be successful in life no matter what college he picks or if he makes it to the NFL.
“Playing a small part of his life, he impacts you just as much as you’re impacting him,” he said. “That’s the reason why I think he’s going to be successful… It’s just his personality and work ethic that will make him be successful in life.”
“The sky is going to be the limit for him.”
