UW Fresh Start (No. 21): Time to Take the Wrapping Off Megwa and Let Him Run
Emeka Megwa was moving kind of slow as he walked out of Husky Stadium once the Apple Cup ended, probably wondering what he'd gotten himself into.
The Texas running back had a white towel around his neck, a faraway look in his eyes.
Passing up his senior year of high school, Megwa had been in Seattle for two and a half months, eager to get started in the University of Washington football program.
However, his coach was fired. The team nosedived. Wearing a jersey and sweat pants that day, he watched the Huskies get clobbered 40-13 by Washington State to end a perilous season.
Megwa forever will be known as Jimmy Lake's most heavily recruited player, as a 6-foot, 210-pound running back who fielded 37 scholarship offers.
The Fort Worth prospect reportedly turned down the four A's —Alabama, Auburn, Arkansas and Arizona State — in favor of the Huskies. He also considered Notre Dame, Oklahoma and Ohio State.
Once in Seattle, Megwa was brought along slowly, said to be nursing a high school injury but practicing. Yet the Lake coaching staff, never one to offer a lot of insight on players, offered almost nothing on the back's progress.
"He catches some balls and does some things," former UW running-backs coach Keith Bhonapha said late in the season. "He's going to be a decent player."
But was he practicing?
"He's been catching balls," Bhonapha said evasively.
Is that practicing?
"He's been catching balls since he got here," the coach said, unwilling to budge.
Bhonapha has gone on to Boise State following the coaching purge, but Megwa is still here, apparently willing to give the new Kalen DeBoer coaching staff a chance to see him run.
A month and a half until spring practice, we're offering intel and observations gathered on the UW football personnel in a series of stories on every scholarship player from No. 0 to 99. We'll review each Husky's previous starting experience, if applicable, and determine what comes next under DeBoer.
As is the case with any coaching change, it's a new football beginning for everyone, including for the Huskies' No. 21 on offense.
Megwa is one of seven UW running backs on the roster, one of four from Texas.
He's a big and fast runner with huge calves, the latter description noted humorously by Dave Campbell's Texas recruiting website.
While he apparently didn't take part in any contact last fall, though it's still not exactly clear what Bhonapha was randomly suggesting, Megwa wouldn't surprise anyone if he was in the middle of the competition when DeBoer sorts through all the talent left to him.
Richard Newton, a 6-foot, 215-pound junior, has three starts to his name and career stats of 179 carries for 758 yards and 13 touchdowns. Yet the Californian still is recovering from knee surgery.
A 6-foot, 205-pound sophomore, Cam Davis drew starting assignments in the 2019 Las Vegas Bowl against Boise State and last season at Colorado. Another Californian, he has modest career stats of 102 rushes for 381 yards and 2 scores.
Jay'Veon Sunday, a 6-foot, 195-pound redshirt freshman from Waco, Texas, is the only other Husky running back who has seen live duty. He ran for 10 yards on 8 carries last season.
Add to the mix 5-foot-11, 180-pound sophomore Aaron Dumas, a New Mexico transfer and an El Paso, Texas, native who rushed 136 times for 658 yards and 2 scores.
That leaves a pair of redshirt freshmen, 6-foot-1, 225-pound Caleb Berry from Waco, Texas, and 6-foot-1, 200-pound Sam Adams II of Kirkland, Washington, still looking for their first action.
Berry, the UW's biggest back, came to the Huskies after breaking his leg as a high school senior and has needed to round into shape, while Adams dealt with a shoulder injury that cost him most of last season.
Megwa has some of the most glossy schoolboy credentials of any of these backs, though he seemed to experience his greatness in reverse. He skipped his senior high school season to come to the UW. The pandemic disrupted his junior year, in which he ran for 730 yards and a dozen touchdowns. As a sophomore in 2019, he showed what he could do with 1,786 yards and 27 TDs rushing.
Husky Stadium awaits him coming out on game day in a full-dress uniform, taking and giving hits, breaking big gainers and looking totally excited by everything going on.
UW Starter or Not: If we know anything about him at all as a collegian, Megwa apparently can catch the football. Now it's time to see him run with it, beginning in spring practice. By coming directly to the UW and graduating from high school early, Megwa made it known he considers himself ahead of his time. With Newton not available for months, the job is wide open. For that matter, Adams may be headed to the defense. That leaves Davis, Dumas and the three other Texans to contend for the starting job. Megwa should be as good or better than anyone else.
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