It has become increasingly uncommon to see NFL prospects from outside the Power 4 conferences (SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, ACC) selected early in the NFL Draft. A talent passing up lucrative transfer offers to stay put, as 2025 first-round pick Ashton Jeanty did at Boise State, is the rare exception.
So, when a prospect from a smaller school lands on the NFL radar, the immediate reaction seems to be: “Why is he still playing there? Is he that good if he didn’t get scooped up by a bigger team?”
However, Toledo has mostly bucked the trend. Under head coach Jason Candle, the Rockets have produced a draft pick in each of the past four years, including a top-100 selection in 2025 (Darius Alexander) and a first-rounder in 2023 (Quinyon Mitchell).
“Our guys have bought in that they can be where their feet are,” Candle said. “They can reap the benefits of what today’s college athletics looks like on a smaller scale, but still be in position to grow and play their last year of college football at a really high level, so there’s real money waiting for them at the end of the rainbow in the NFL.”
Safety Emmanuel McNeil-Warren is next up. He had options this past offseason — other schools with deeper pockets that wanted him as part of their secondaries in 2025.
However, he stayed put at Toledo, and his reasoning was simple: “It’s family here. If not for Toledo, I don’t know where I would be.”
College football has always been about recruiting. Now, it is about re-recruiting and retention.
McNeil-Warren became a sophomore starter for the Rockets in 2023 and forced six turnovers that season (four fumbles, two interceptions). He took another step in his on-field development as a junior, despite missing the final five games of the 2024 season due to a shoulder injury, and programs outside the MAC began to notice his talent.
“I had a couple moments where, maybe, I thought, ‘Maybe I should leave,’ ” McNeil-Warren said about the increased interest in him last offseason. “There were a lot of people telling me to get in the (transfer) portal.”
Emmanuel McNeil-Warren is eight tackles shy of 200 for his college career. (James Snook / Imagn Images)
Mitchell and Alexander faced a similar decision entering their respective final college seasons: stay at Toledo or see if the grass (and NIL money) was greener elsewhere.
From 2018 to 2022, an average of nine non-major-conference players were selected in the first two rounds of the NFL Draft. That number has dropped to just 2.3 over the last three drafts (2023-25), as the emergence of NIL and looser NCAA transfer rules has become the new norm in college football.
Mitchell was one of the dwindling few early-round draft picks from the Group of 5 conferences. He and Alexander both stayed, trusted the development they’d made at Toledo, and, ultimately, emerged as coveted prospects.
“I feel like we just do a great job of developing players at Toledo,” Mitchell said. “Before me, it was Sam Womack, Tycen Anderson, Kareem Hunt, Diontae Johnson — I feel like guys go (to Toledo), get developed well, get coached well, (become) great people, have great character. I just feel like Toledo is a place to be if you want to be in the National Football League.”
Like Mitchell, Alexander and those others before him, McNeil-Warren has trusted his Toledo process. Now, it appears to be paying off.
Two months into his senior season, he’s only strengthened his NFL Draft argument. He leads the Rockets in forced fumbles (three), plus has an interception, three tackles for loss and a half-sack. He’s also second on the team in tackles (55), including 11 tackles two games ago against Washington State. He is currently my top-ranked senior safety for the 2026 NFL Draft and cracked my updated top-50 draft board.
As Candle puts it, we’re seeing the “best version” of McNeil-Warren right now. He isn’t done climbing, either. However, he’s already come so far.
Born and raised in the sunshine of Tampa, Fla., McNeil-Warren tried basketball growing up. He also ran a little bit of track. He was always drawn to the football field as a kid, though.
His mother, Sharona McNeil, raised him. Before McNeil-Warren reached high school, however, Sharona suggested her son move across the bay to St. Petersburg, where his father, Tarus Horne, was an assistant coach at Lakewood High. The idea was two-fold: She wanted McNeil-Warren to be closer with his father during his formative years, and she wanted to further his football career.
“At the time, I didn’t really like the idea,” McNeil-Warren recalled. “We (McNeil-Warren and Horne) didn’t have that connection. But we got closer over time, with football and everything.”
It took some patience. McNeil-Warren wasn’t accustomed to Horne’s discipline, and moving to a new school meant adjusting to unfamiliar surroundings. Looking back on it now, though, McNeil-Warren credits his father as a “role model” who kept him on the right path.
Sharona McNeil’s first objective came to fruition. As for her second?
McNeil-Warren played on varsity all four years at Lakewood High. As a wide receiver, he was expected to stay on offense at Lakewood, especially since Horne was the team’s offensive coordinator. However, Lakewood needed help in the secondary and decided to give McNeil-Warren a shot there. He quickly found a new home on the football field.
“I liked making plays against my dad’s offense in practice — making plays against him, telling him I was better than (he was) when he was little,” McNeil-Warren said in an interview for Toledo’s team website in 2024.
McNeil-Warren found so much success on defense that he eventually earned a three-star rating and drew interest from several high-profile programs. However, his first and most profound connection came with a MAC school that’s become known for uncovering diamonds.
Toledo’s coaches are regulars in high schools throughout Florida and the southeast, often identifying bright up-and-comers before SEC and Big Ten teams crash the party. Mitchell, mostly an unknown outside of his small central Florida hometown before the Rockets discovered him on the recruiting trail, is the most recent example.
In the fall of 2019, Candle stopped by Lakewood High School to see another potential recruit. However, on the visit, he spotted a long, talented athlete shooting around on the basketball court — and put on his detective hat. It was McNeil-Warren, a sophomore at the time.
“We knew pretty quickly that Emmanuel was a physically impressive guy,” Candle said. “And the more we got to know him, the more we dug into his background, we knew it was someone we wanted to bring into our program.”
McNeil-Warren described his first meeting with Candle as “crazy,” because no other schools had shown much love to that point. But his anonymity didn’t last long. In the six months after Toledo gave him his first scholarship, McNeil-Warren picked up offers from Indiana, Kansas State, Maryland and Miami (Fla.).
It wouldn’t have been the first time that Toledo led the way on a recruit only to be sniped by a program from a larger conference.
Went up to @ToledoFB for the second in-person invites of the year! 🚀
💫 @McneilEmanuel💫 @Chipperrz_#ShrineBowlWHOSNEXT pic.twitter.com/PDK6Y3PsjC
— East-West Shrine Bowl (@ShrineBowl) October 29, 2025
Football fate is known for its twists and turns, though. McNeil-Warren missed a chunk of his senior season in 2021 because of a concussion and an elbow injury. As a result, Indiana backed off. So did Maryland. McNeil-Warren even started to wonder if he would play college ball at all.
Reenter Toledo, and Candle, who stayed in contact with McNeil-Warren and never stopped recruiting him. Shortly before signing day, McNeil-Warren flew up to Toledo’s campus and fell in love with the community.
He committed on his visit. Now, four years later, that bond remains.
“They gave me an opportunity, and I appreciate them for that,” McNeil-Warren said.
