Maryland Notebook: Emeka Egbuka Has Huge Kickoff Return Game, Kerry Coombs Gets
Only once in Ohio State history has a kickoff returner ever had more yardage in a game than Emeka Egbuka did against Maryland.
Egbuka returned all four of Maryland’s kickoffs in Saturday’s game for a combined 166 yards, the second-most ever by an individual Ohio State player in a single game. Only Carlos Snow, who had 213 yards on five kickoff returns against Pittsburgh in 1988, has ever had more.
The true freshman wide receiver, who’s been Ohio State’s lead kickoff returner since the second game of the season, has provided a spark in the kickoff return game that the Buckeyes have been missing for years. For the season, he has now gained 275 yards – already the most by an individual Buckeye since Parris Campbell in 2017 – on just eight returns, an average of more than 34 yards per returner.
Ryan Day isn’t surprised by Egbuka’s early success.
“I gotta give credit to Emeka, because his approach has been very mature,” Day said after Ohio State’s 66-17 win. “Not much like a freshman.”
Ohio State still hasn’t returned a kickoff for a touchdown since Jordan Hall in 2010, but Egbuka came close in the second quarter of Saturday’s game, when he returned a kickoff 67 yards to Maryland’s 29-yard line. Egbuka also had returns of 46 and 33 yards in Saturday’s game.
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12’s gonna be special.@emeka_egbuka // @OhioStateFB pic.twitter.com/IymxowNJpq
— Ohio State on BTN (@OhioStateOnBTN) October 9, 2021
He hopes to end Ohio State’s 11-year kickoff return touchdown drought in the near future.
“I feel like that’s definitely coming, something I’ve just gotta keep going at,” Egbuka said. “We know we’re gonna bust one open soon.”
Egbuka, who was ranked as the No. 10 overall prospect in the recruiting class of 2021, has a combination of speed and shiftiness that makes him a threat to make a big play any time the ball is in his hands. Of course, he can’t do that by himself; Egbuka said a big reason why he’s had quick success as a kickoff returner is because he’s getting “amazing blocks” from his teammates.
“You can’t just return on your own, you need a really good unit in front of you, and I think that those guys have put a lot of work in and we’ve seen where it’s been one or two guys that just maybe didn’t finish their block and then it would have been at least on the kicker, and we got there today,” Day said. “That really flips the field for us. Getting the ball to midfield, it’s huge. But it’s everybody involved. There’s a lot of guys on that kickoff return that deserve credit.”
Egbuka believes the Buckeyes’ kickoff return unit is just getting started.
“Our mindset is to return every kick if we can if we have the opportunity, so we’re always looking to break one open,” Egbuka said. “We know we have the best kickoff return in the country, and we’re here to prove that.”
Coombs gets the game…
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