Neff Giwa has never played in a football game and has only watched highlights of the sport, but over the past two weeks, the 6-foot-7, 295-pound rugby player from Ireland has become one of the hottest commodities in college recruiting.
Miami was the first to offer Giwa, who projects as an offensive lineman, a scholarship after coach Mario Cristobal saw a video posted on X just last week. Several other Power 4 conference schools quickly followed with offers.
In that post, Brandon Collier, who runs Germany-based Premier Prospects International (PPI), predicted Giwa “will be a 1st round pick one day! Remember this tweet!!!”
Over the past decade, Collier, a former defensive tackle at UMass, has helped place approximately 100 international athletes at major college football programs. Many have been former track and field athletes, soccer players, basketball players and some were even alpine skiers and tennis players. PPI produced eight players who started in the SEC last season. Valdin Sone, a 6-3, 315-pound elite shot putter-turned-defensive tackle born in Sweden, became the organization’s first five-star recruit and signed with Georgia in December.
In early January, Collier received a tip from a former rugby player in England. “I got a kid you’re gonna love.”
Collier was busy helping some of his players navigate the transfer portal. He didn’t have time to follow up, but his friend was persistent, sending three or four straight messages. Collier had grown accustomed to these pitches. In this instance, he figured the player would be scrawny, “but he was hounding me about him,” Collier said last week. “Then he sent me a picture. I think he was underselling him.”
Neff Giwa shows incredible athleticism for his size. (Courtesy of Brandon Collier)
“I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh!’” Collier said. “I wanted to fly him to Germany tomorrow.”
Neff Giwa was born in Ireland. His father, a physiotherapist, and his mother, a nurse, emigrated from Nigeria. He grew up in Cashel, about two hours from Dublin, and started playing soccer when he was 4. He played for his local team, Cashel FC, in the U12 and U13 divisions, but as he started getting a lot bigger, his friends introduced him to rugby.
“I started enjoying that a lot more,” Giwa said. “I was always a lot taller than everybody else, but since my body was really growing, I didn’t have that much coordination.”
At 14, he started track and field and also took up basketball, which helped with his coordination and his ability to accelerate. “Looking back,” he said, “I can see how all of that helped me get to this stage.”
In January, the 20-year-old Giwa flew to Frankfurt and then took a two-hour bus ride to meet Collier at a gym in Wiesbaden. He measured in at 6-7 1/2 and 295 pounds, and his arms were 37 inches long. Anything over 35 inches is considered exceptional for an NFL offensive tackle prospect. Collier also timed Giwa at 4.88 in the 40-yard dash and 9 feet 10 inches in the broad jump — both also elite for an offensive tackle.
For Giwa, much of Collier’s workout, at least in terms of the agility drills, reminded him of his soccer and rugby days. But then, things got a bit more physical, and Collier, the former Division I defensive tackle, bull-rushed him.
“Brandon was testing my character, I guess, and really put me straight through my paces,” Giwa said. “He is a tough guy, and he definitely pushed me. That first time, he definitely rocked me. His explosiveness was hard to explain.”
Collier was impressed with how Giwa responded and how well he moved. He knew his length and athleticism were rare, but as the workout continued, Collier realized so was Giwa’s physicality.
“He’s so tall, but he actually had good leverage,” Collier said. “He’s also got this toughness about him. He’s like a fighter. He’s got something inside him that I haven’t seen from many kids. Some of the linemen, they’re very athletic, but they played sports that were softer. He played rugby. He was physical as heck.”
And that physicality is often the biggest question mark for European athletes who are transitioning to American football.
“I think it comes from growing up with two older brothers and playing WWE in the living room,” Giwa said. “They were bigger than you, but you had that grit, where you wanted to pin them down, and playing rugby and trying to get that edge over other players who might be bigger and wider than you. It’s either you hit or you get hit.”
Getting up to speed on O-line play from a technical standpoint has been the biggest challenge. Learning the rules and nuances of American football is one thing — learning the techniques required in offensive line play is like a new language. Giwa has immersed himself in everything he could find on YouTube.
He’s spent hours studying San Francisco 49ers great Trent Williams. He marvels at how the 6-5, 320-pounder can deftly move and always seems to be in position to counter everything a D-lineman might try.
“It’s really incredible,” Giwa said. “In rugby, size generally determines how strong someone can be, but in football, it’s a lot more about explosiveness and power. I saw clips of (Miami’s 6-9, 346-pound offensive tackle) Markel Bell getting rocked by some smaller guys, so that’s why (Collier) was very hard on being technical from Day 1.”
Giwa’s biggest inspiration is Jordan Mailata. The Eagles’ enormous left tackle, at 6-8, 365 pounds, grew up in Australia and was a high-level rugby player. He’s gone from being a huge project, selected in the seventh round in the 2018 NFL Draft, to a Super Bowl champ who earned second-team All-Pro honors in 2024.
“I watched his story,” Giwa said. “His parents were against moving to the U.S, but he did it anyway to chase his dream. I have a personal attachment to him. It wasn’t straightforward for him either. He was on the practice squad. There were a lot of ups and downs as well.”
In March, Collier brought Giwa and nine other European prospects to the U.S. Their first stop was Ohio State. Giwa got measured in Columbus, and the group met some of the Buckeyes coaches. It was the same thing at the next stop, Kentucky. From there, the group, traveling in a sprinter van, drove 12 hours to Toronto to conduct a workout with another prospect.
Giwa’s head was spinning when he heard they’d be driving a half-day into Canada. “I said, ‘But we just got to America.’”
Collier has been taking European prospects on tours for years, so Giwa wasn’t about to second-guess all the zig-zagging.
“Whatever trusted me to go to Wiesbaden to go to him was the same thing that kicked in,” Giwa said. “Trust in the process. When we got to Toronto, I thought we were going to some big practice field, but it was this small green area beside a basketball court. It was just like another day training on the rugby pitch. But I couldn’t have anticipated what happened next. It’s hard to explain.”
Collier set up an extensive workout with Giwa and the rest of the prospects, as well as some other linemen from Canada, and filmed it. Before warming up for the workout, Collier also had Giwa download X onto his phone and create an account.
“I put in my bio and these statistics in, and didn’t really think anything of it,” he said. “I put my phone in my bag and then started training. Maybe three hours passed, and obviously something happened in that time.”
On March 16 at 5:44 p.m., Collier posted a three-second video of Giwa pass blocking in a one-on-one drill with a defensive end. Within minutes, coaches from Miami, SMU, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina and Texas Tech wrote to Collier asking about Giwa.
This 6’8 300lb OT @NeffGiwa came from rugby.. he will be a 1st round pick one day! Remember this tweet!!!
He’s big, athletic, tough, and work hard to be great!! I would take him at any college in America!!! Special talent , work ethic and character pic.twitter.com/qYfGyJOE0B
— Brandon Collier (@BCollierPPI) March 17, 2026
“Mario Cristobal started blowing me up about him,” Collier said. “‘We gotta get him to Miami!’ They’re trying to get him to sign for this (the 2026) class.”
Collier scrambled to set up a flight for Giwa to visit Miami this past Sunday. Before that, there was another 12-hour ride to resume the next round of stops on their campus trip. They visited Michigan and Michigan State, and then went on to Clemson, South Carolina and Tennessee. Both South Carolina and Tennessee offered. Before flying to Miami, they had had stops planned at Ole Miss and Georgia. Collier brings Neff’s passport on all of the visits to verify to the coaches that this recruit they had never heard of a week ago is only 20 years old.
“It’s been crazy, man. A crazy experience,” Giwa said. “I didn’t understand the network of how these coaches operate. I get tagged in the post. Then, I saw these likes and comments. It’s just surreal. I’ve got these coaches from Oklahoma and Texas A&M now messaging me. A month ago, I didn’t exist in the world of American football, and now I do, it’s a testament to the power of social media and the power of Brandon Collier.”
Giwa’s parents don’t really understand all of this recruiting frenzy.
“They’re more on the educational side,” he said, “and that this can really open some doors. I explained to them that it’s really like the Premier League in England. They were like, ‘Oh, my goodness.’ My dad started looking up all the teams.”
After visiting Miami, Collier said he’s not sure where Giwa may head next. Perhaps SMU or a return to South Carolina.
“Both are trying to get him to commit now,” Collier said. “Based on Miami being the first one to offer, if everything works out, I think he could potentially commit there. He was so impressed by them offering first that he wanted to fly there to see them.”
Giwa said there’s a good chance he picks a school soon.
“I’m just trying to find the right fit,” he said.
