Nothing should have gone right for Riley Neal in his first college start.
He was an 18-year-old true freshman quarterback for Ball State playing at No. 17 Northwestern, which was allowing an FBS-low 5.6 points per game and was a 19 1/2-point favorite.
“I had quite the welcoming to college football, but it was good,” Neal said in a phone interview last week.
Good was Neal’s play that night (14-of-35 passing for 178 yards and two touchdowns) in a 24-19 loss and good is how he describes the opportunity with the Broncos.
“I had talked to them a little bit going (into the draft) and I knew that would hopefully be a possible destination for me,” Neal said.
Realistically, Neal’s roster prospects are thin. The Broncos have Drew Lock, Jeff Driskel and Brett Rypien in front of him and they kept two quarterbacks on the roster last year.
Neal (6-foot-6, 225 pounds) is embracing the challenge with the Broncos instead of worrying about his odds. Kind of like the Northwestern game.
“We played with them and played really hard,” he said. “I remember being pretty sore after the game and it didn’t feel like high school (football) at all.”
Joey Lynch was Ball State’s offensive coordinator during Neal’s four years with the Cardinals.
“He played very well and definitely not like a true freshman, so we knew then the stage wasn’t too big for him,” said Lynch, who joined Colorado State’s staff as offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach in January.
In five years — four at Ball State and one at Vanderbilt — Neal totaled 8,978 passing yards, 55 touchdowns and 30 interceptions. He faced Northwestern, Indiana, Illinois and Notre Dame as a Ball State starter and the SEC gauntlet last year (No. 3 Georgia, No. 4 LSU and No. 10 Florida) with Vanderbilt.
Neal, 23, grew up in Yorktown, Ind., and started 36 games in high school (27-9 record) and set school records for passing yards (7,285) and touchdowns (78). He went to the summer camps to showcase himself for college recruiters, but there were only two takers: Ball State and Illinois State.
Choosing Ball State was easy — its campus in Muncie was the next town east of Yorktown, Neal’s father (Jesse) and uncle (Jay) both played there and he already had a good rapport with Lynch.
“He was a young player I saw a bunch of,” Lynch said. “He was a tall, skinny kid who kept growing into his body. By the time he got to his senior year (of high school), he looked how a Division I quarterback is supposed to look. To be honest, I think he was a little bit under-recruited out of high school. We were fortunate to know him.”
Neal started 2015 fall camp as the third-team quarterback, but moved up to No. 2 before the season started and played as a reserve in two of the first three games.
“I don’t think the plan was ever for me to redshirt,” he said. “It was always in my mind that I was playing that year.”
Neal survived Northwestern and started the next eight games (1-8 record. 16 touchdowns and six interceptions). His 2,276 passing yards were sixth among FBS true freshmen in 2015; Rypien was third (3,353) for Boise State.
Neal started 11 games (4-7, 13 touchdowns and 12 interceptions) as a sophomore and was ready for a breakthrough 2017 season.
“No question, I thought we were on the right track,” Lynch said.
But in the Cardinals’ third game, Neal sustained a tibial plateau fracture (break in the upper part of the shin bone) and took a redshirt year. He returned in 2018 to start nine games (11 touchdowns and four interceptions) before injuring his knee.
Having graduated with a business degree and looking for a change, Neal chose to transfer.
“I talked to a lot of coaches, definitely more than I did in high school,” he said. “I had been in (the Muncie area) my whole life so I wanted to do something different. Vanderbilt had a pro-style offense and a degree from Vanderbilt is something nice to have, too.”
Neal earned a graduate degree in education and started nine games (nine touchdowns and five interceptions).
“I think it benefited me a lot, just like the week in and week out competition would for anybody,” he said. “Sometimes in the MAC (Mid-American Conference), I got those (tough) games, but it wasn’t every week.”
When the Broncos start camp, Neal knows his practice snaps will be limited, but that won’t stop his learning progression.
“Just taking the mental reps when you don’t get the opportunities is a good way to (make up) for not getting a lot of reps,” he said. “You have four quarterbacks and there’s no rookie minicamp and the team will be getting ready to play in games so it won’t be a normal situation for me in a sense.”
