Steilacoom’s Emeka Egbuka wins college football national championship with Ohio State
Steilacoom’s Emeka Egbuka is a college football national champion. Egbuka, a senior wide receiver at Ohio State, helped the Buckeyes defeat the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in Monday night’s college football national championship game in Atlanta, Georgia, 34-23.
He caught six passes for 64 yards in the win and had a 13-yard carry. On the season, Egbuka caught 81 passes for 1,011 yards and 10 touchdowns, averaging 12.5 yards per reception.
Egbuka, a 2021 graduate of Steilacoom High School, was The News Tribune’s 2019 All-Area high school football player of the year as a junior, as well as Washington’s Gatorade player of the year. The two-time 2A South Puget Sound League Mountain division MVP racked up 1,607 receiving yards and 25 touchdowns on 83 receptions in his junior season and had 2,240 all-purpose yards and 35 total touchdowns.
Egbuka had a knack for making acrobatic, highlight-reel catches in high school. His one-handed grab in the back of the end zone against Tumwater in the 2019 Class 2A state championship game made rounds on social media.
He racked up 3,907 career receiving yards in three high school seasons and had a good shot at breaking the state’s all-time record of 5,177 receiving yards — set by Prosser’s Cody Bruns from 2005-07 — before the pandemic took away his senior season.
Considered a five-star recruit in high school, Egbuka had his pick of schools across the nation before landing in Columbus. He was a member of The News Tribune’s 2021 class of Northwest Nuggets, which highlights the top recruits from the Pacific Northwest.
At Ohio State, Egbuka has tallied 2,868 career receiving yards and 24 touchdowns on 205 receptions. In mock drafts, Egbuka is projected by many to be a first-round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.
This story was originally published January 21, 2025 at 11:53 AM.
