Emeka Egbuka

There’s this picture of 9-year-old Emeka Egbuka with former Seattle Mariners SP Felix Hernandez. It was taken on a gameday in 2012 at Safeco Field. Egbuka was there on invitation from the Mariners to throw out the ceremonial first pitch.

Egbuka, a Washington native, had just won Major League Baseball’s national Pitch, Hit & Run competition. Back then, Egbuka saw himself as a center fielder. Up until high school, most everyone else did as well.

That began to change after Egbuka’s freshman year – it turned out that the skills Egbuka had picked up on the diamond had translated over to the gridiron. “I just find it so much easier looking for a ball over my shoulder,” Egbuka told The Columbus Dispatch, “because I’m so used to running down a ball in center field.”

Egbuka attended a 7-on-7 camp in Las Vegas and was so dominant that Florida State offered him a scholarship on the spot. That gesture brought Egbuka and his father to tears. A few years later, Egbuka had scholarship offers from every school in America that mattered.

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As a junior, Egbuka won the state’s Gatorade Player of the Year award. Egbuka was the nation’s No. 1 receiver recruit. The small campus of Egbuka’s high school – enrollment of less than 700 – was soon crawling with college coaches, including Ohio State’s Ryan Day and Washington’s Chris Petersen.

On Egbuka’s 17th birthday, the mailbox was bursting with more than 100 letters. Amongst them was a handwritten note from every single head coach at Stanford – David Shaw, of course, but also the basketball and volleyball coaches, the golf coach, the water polo coach…every single one of them.

Stanford was joined by Notre Dame in Egbuka’s initial top-10 list. Egbuka’s parents both have master's degrees, and were each standout young athletes. Emeka was a 4.0 student in high school.

Ranked No. 8 overall in the 2021 recruiting class, Egbuka ultimately whittled his final-three to Ohio State, Oklahoma, and Washington. Egbuka, in a move of supreme pragmatism that made his engineer father beam, created a scorecard with 20 different categories – such as development, Round 1 potential, coaching staff, QB room, WR room, comfort level, academic support, degree value, etc.

After the final analysis, Ohio State finished No. 1 in Egbuka’s metrics. Oklahoma and Washington tied for No. 2. And that was that. Emeka Egbuka arrived in Columbus in 2021. He stepped into a WR room that consisted of Garrett Wilson, Chris Olave, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Marvin Harrison, and Julian Fleming (No. 1-rated WR in 2020). Sam Wiglusz and Joe Royer – who combined for three 50-plus catch seasons the past two years at Ohio and Cincinnati, respectively – were so buried they were in witness protection.

In 2022, with Wilson and Olave off to the NFL, and JSN’s season ruined by injuries, Egbuka burst onto the scene with a 74-1151-10 receiving line. A high-ankle sprain in Game 5 against Maryland in early-October 2023 wrecked Egbuka’s junior season. He underwent tightrope surgery and missed a month. He was clearly not 100 percent after he returned. 

That development is likely why we didn’t see Egbuka in last year’s draft. Egbuka returned in 2024, posting an 81-1011-10 receiving line for the national champs. Egbuka leaves Ohio State as the program's all-time leader in catches (205) and receiving yards (2,868).

Emeka Egbuka Scouting Report

Over his four-year career, Egbuka played three-quarters of his snaps in the slot, with one-quarter coming on the boundary. He was deployed in the same way former teammate Jaxon Smith-Njigba was. They are extremely similar players and prospects.

Like JSN, Egbuka is a primary slot who is capable of taking snaps on the boundary, particularly in 12-personnel sets. And like JSN, Egbuka’s calling cards are route-running and efficiency.

A well-built slot at 6-foot-1, 202 pounds, Egbuka is a smooth operator. He’s a true “7/11” type – always open. In the past three seasons, Egbuka was 95th percentile in separation percentage. He’s equally adept against man and zone.

Egbuka has this class’ quickest zone-coverage processor – he gets one snapshot of defender movement post-snap and he’s got the whole picture. Egbuka knows where everyone is headed, which means he knows exactly where the open patch of grass is about to appear.

In man coverage, Egbuka shows a bit of his father’s engineering bent – it’s all angles, spatial manipulation, and leverage. Ohio State’s elite boundary receivers afforded Egbuka the intermediate spacing that he thrives in. Space is an ocean, and, with enough of it, Egbuka will drag your nickel into depth to drown.

Egbuka is a composer out there, with the guitar riffs of unpredictable tempo changes playing over the relentless drumbeat of his quick feet. He throttles down suddenly into route breaks and is precise with his footwork through them. Inevitably, he forces more steps out of his man than he takes – and he’s got a knack for coaxing false steps, 

Egbuka’s hands are strong and reliable. His 5.5% drop rate (per PFF) on 205 career receptions was stellar. Egbuka has Professor X concentration with the ball in the air in congested quarters. This is a skill the NFL will appreciate.

When chains need to be moved, you can trust that you’ll get the best of it with Egbuka if you need to muscle a ball in against tight coverage. Over his career, Egbuka converted an excellent 25-of-46 contested situations.

And to Egbuka’s earlier point about ball tracking and over-the-shoulder catches from his center field days – over the past two seasons, Egbuka was a solid 5-for-11 in contested scenarios 20+ yards downfield. Egbuka is capable of taking advantage of one-on-one opportunities downfield situationally.

Egbuka is similar to JSN in terms of running after the catch. Egbuka doesn’t run with much power, and he doesn’t deploy many open-field pyrotechnics, but his YAC is adequate because of his acceleration and vision. The first helps him get into space, and the second improves his odds of staying there.

The way to defend Egbuka is by trying to take the fight to him right away to disrupt timing. That smooth element of his game starts to look more like finesse on reps his defender tangoes with him out of the chute. You must make Egbuka work for everything, or he’s going to nick you with paper cuts for four quarters. 

Egbuka did not athletically test at the NFL Combine. I’m probably in the minority here, but I don’t care if Egbuka tests at all. There are multiple reports of Egbuka running in the 4.4s coming out of high school. 

More topically and to the point, Reel Analytics gave Egbuka an elite 96.0 In-Game Athleticism Score based on GPS tracking. In short: Egbuka has all the athleticism he needs to excel in the role we know he’ll play in the NFL – high-volume efficiency slot. 

That will be the case whether he tests or not this spring. We’ll know on March 26 – the date of Ohio State’s pro day. Either way, I see a hyper-efficient slot eerily reminiscent of former teammate Jaxon Smith-Njigba. Egbuka figures to land right around where JSN did – No. 20 overall to the Seahawks – two springs ago. 

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