Inside The Huskies

Former Husky Running Back Emeka Megwa Commits to New School

The exan will play for UNLV after spending the past two seasons at Oklahoma.
Dan Raley|
Former Husky Emeka Megwa has committed to UNLV.
Former Husky Emeka Megwa has committed to UNLV. | UNLV

A lot of people head to Las Vegas hoping to strike it rich, to change their luck overnight, and Emeka Megwa is one of them.

On Friday, the former University of Washington and Oklahoma running back committed to UNLV and new coach Dan Mullen, still looking to convince people he has something left to offer as a ball carrier some three and a half years after suffering a devastating knee injury that so far has prevented him from having a high-level college career.

The 6-foot, 213-pound Megwa from Fort Worth, Texas, was a highly touted player who then-Husky coach Jimmy Lake was going to build his program around. However, he tore up his knee entering his senior season of high school football and nothing has been the same for him since.

Megwa underwent multiple knee surgeries. He reclassified, graduated early and enrolled at the UW in 2021 in order to have immediate access to the Husky training room and medical staff during his recovery.

The running back was so highly thought of during his recruitment, he fielded more than 40 offers and picked the UW over Alabama, Arizona State and Arkansas.

While he spent two quarters with the Huskies, he never practiced with them and left the program after spring football in 2022 when Kalen DeBoer was the coach.

A year ago, Megwa sued the UW alleging that after Jimmy Lake’s coaching staff left the program, the new coaches and trainers ignored the recovery plan in place and repeatedly pushed him in workouts beyond the limits of his recovery.

Out of football for a year, Megwa turned up at Oklahoma as a walk-on, or non-scholarship player, and appeared in two games in 2023, rushing once for 6 yards, and spent this past season with the Sooners but didn't play in any outings.

Megwa's college career has been the ultimate hard-luck story as this kid with unlimited promise who appears to have had everything taken from him.

For the latest UW football and basketball news, go to si.com/college/washington

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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