ALSTON AND FAMILY, ALFORD HAVE BUILT GREAT RELATIONSHIP
In the first 24 hours after Georgia prospect Damari Alston was extended an offer from Tony Alford, the Buckeyes’ running backs coach was instantly making a real-life impact on both Alston and his parents.
The offer came on August 11, the same day the Big Ten announced it was canceling the fall football season and pushing it back to the spring, but Alford still had his eyes on recruiting the four-star Woodward Academy standout. The next day, Alford got on the phone with Alston and eventually had him hand the phone over to his parents. That conversation went really well, and it sparked things to where we stand now in his recruitment.
“The day after he offered me, he got to know my parents,” Alston told Eleven Warriors last week. “We got on the phone, and he got me to give them the phone. They loved talking to him. They think he’s a great guy, and he’s someone who has my best interests in mind.”
That offer was actually about five months in the making, Alston says, as Alford told him he had been doing background research, scouting and getting to know Alston’s game and his character from coaches before finally pulling the trigger on it.
And now, after about three months of true relationship building and genuine trust being cultivated between the two, Alston says Ohio State has emerged with Florida as one of his top-two schools because of his closeness with Alford.
“Coach Alford’s approach is different from any other coach I’ve talked to,” Alston said. “I would say he’s the coach, out of anyone else, that I’m closest with. He just keeps it so real. I’ll be honest, a lot of other schools tell me the same thing, and it gets old. His approach is real. He doesn’t fill my head up with anything. He just tells me exactly what he sees in me as a running back.”
And what exactly does he see in Alston? Some of the same stuff that Alford saw in a Georgia Tech freshman who is having a standout season and who Alford recruited in the 2020 class.
“He compares me to Jahmyr Gibbs,” Alston said. “That’s what a lot of people I talk to, reporters and other people, have compared me to. Coach Alford said I’m like him only Jahmyr is probably a little faster.”
