How South Carolina’s Nick Emmanwori went from unknown to a can’t-miss NFL prospect
The NFL Combine is a bizarre event. Forget the whole pomp and circumstance of it all — or that fact that fans come to watch a made-for-TV spectacle that often becomes background noise during a nap.
The combine is odd because it is a test. No one is a changed person before and after the test. They are the same person with the same measurables and the same set of skills and talents. The only change is that someone evaluates a very-specific set of somewhat random things.
Bench pressing 225 pounds. Jumping straight up with no running start. Running 40 yards. On and on.
Nick Emmanwori was always a freak athlete. But a few weeks ago in Indianapolis, he proved that he can excel at this very-specific set of activities. Scratch that, excel doesn’t do it justice. He proved he could do these things better than almost anyone who plays his position and fits his frame have ever done.
He ran the 40-yard dash in 4.38 seconds. His vertical jump measured in at 43 inches. And his standing broad jump came in at 11 feet, 6 inches. He did all that — as a 6-foot-3, 220-pound man.
“There’s only a few times when you can legitimately say a human being shouldn’t be able to do this. And Emmanwori was one of those times,” NFL Draft analyst Todd McShay said on the Ryen Russillo Podcast. “For me, he stole the show.”
Data models took in Emmanwori’s numbers and declared him the perfect athlete. He was called a “combine star,” compared to Olympians, brought on TV and told his draft stock was going to surge.
“Going into (the combine), I knew it was going to happen,” Emmanwori said after South Carolina’s Pro Day on Tuesday. “We had a pre-combine here and it was great. Everybody in this building knew what was going to go down. The rest of the world just found out.”
The performance made him a first-round mainstay in mock drafts — ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. projecting Emmanwori to the Seattle Seahawks with pick No. 18 and NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah thinking he lands with the Minnesota Vikings at No. 24.
“It’s been surreal,” Remington Emmanwori, one of Nick’s four older brothers, told The State. “We always knew he’d be special but everything he accomplished and getting to the next level — it’s been basically life-changing for everybody. Expectations are just through the roof for us right now.”
Even if he flunked his combine test, the Irmo alum was going to get drafted. In his three years at South Carolina, Emmanwori played safety like a bolt of lightning. He was everywhere and nowhere, able to hide from detection and then dole out damage.
He started 37 games, racked up 166 racks and picked off a half-dozen passes, becoming one of the top safeties in America.
All that for a guy that no one wanted out of Irmo High.
Heck, to an extent, his rapid ascension into the first round of the NFL Draft bears quite the resemblance to how he ended up even playing SEC football. It looked impossible — then folks decided to test him and, all of a sudden, the doubt seemed foolish.
During his senior season at Irmo, the Yellow Jackets coaching staff tallied him for 232 tackles — such an insane numbers that, maybe, some schools figured it was too good to be true. Heck, they must’ve because almost no one offered him.
Granted he committed to USC ahead of his senior year but, regardless, Emmanwori graduated high school with offers from Charlotte, Georgia Southern, Richmond and … South Carolina. Penn Stae and Georgia came into the mix, well late in the mix.
And, well, the Gamecocks sort of stumbled into Emmanwori. He showed up to a Shane Beamer football camp in June 2021 as a local kid looking for exposure. Then he ran through all those same combine drills. The results were, of course, ridiculous.
He earned a scholarship that day. He committed to the Gamecocks 10 days later.
“That’s been the story of my life. South Carolina was my only Power-5 offer,” Emmanwori said Tuesday. “I just needed a platform to make my name known and I think I did that.”
This story was originally published March 19, 2025 at 7:00 AM.
