The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
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24 ■ THE WOLFPACKER BY MATT CARTER hen NC State soph- o m o r e r u n n i n g back Demie Sumo- Karngbaye finished off a 24-yard touch- down run at East Carolina in the 2022 season opener, he had a hard time stopping. So much so that he almost ran into the wall. However, one can excuse Sumo- Karngbaye for being excited. He had not touched a football in a game since 2020 as a senior in high school, and his family had driven seven hours from New Jersey to see him play in Greenville. "It just felt amazing," Sumo-Karng- baye said. "My mind was racing." He was in a hurry — perhaps too much of a hurry, he acknowledged — but that too was understandable considering his desire to prove himself at the highest level of college football. Although Sumo-Karngbaye had been a versatile playmaker at Willingboro (N.J.) High, his recruitment was, by his own admission, "pretty rough." "I only came out with six or seven offers," he recalled, adding that the CO- VID-19 pandemic played a role in that. NC State was unique in a group that also included Northern Illinois, Temple and Toledo, among others. The Pack was the lone Power Five school to offer him a scholarship. "I don't know what the others didn't see," NC State head coach Dave Doeren said. "We saw a really good football player — tough, a guy that can see, has vision, accelerates quickly, catches the ball well, physical, yards after contact, all the things you see now. "That was a weird time, and I'm not saying he might have had a lot more of- fers if coaches were allowed to be out in schools, you just never know. But that was a different time. … We weren't al- lowed to go out on the road." On the flip side, while coaches were not allowed to get out, prospects were not allowed to visit colleges and interact with coaches on campus. Some players took the initiative to make trips and give themselves self- guided tours. Sumo-Karngbaye elected to take what he called "a leap of faith." "When I committed, I didn't even tell my family about it," he recalled. "I just wanted the competition, D-I competition, Power Five especially," he added. "I never even looked at the run- ning back roster. I was just saying, 'I am W MAKING A NAME FOR HIMSELF Running Back Demie Sumo-Karngbaye Went From Unheralded Recruit To Leading Rusher For NC State