WILSON: Poetic Injustice For Emezie's Winston-Salem Finale
College athletics, and all sporting events in general, are full of stories. Tales of triumphant success and heartbreaking failure fill the annals of sports history. NC State, the subject of the most heavily referenced Cinderella story in NCAA Basketball Championship history, is no stranger to this truth.
However, there’s no prose in sports. No one is crafting outcomes from behind a typewriter, a computer keyboard, or on pen and paper. The stories that come to pass get settled, at least in football, on patches of grass 360 feet long.
Despite this, one NC State player in the twilight of his collegiate career had the opportunity to seal off his arc, his hero’s journey, in a satisfactory manner. Emeka Emezie took to Truist Field in Winston-Salem, N.C. with incomparable stakes for himself and his teammates on the line.
As a true freshman in 2017 behind receivers like Kelvin Harmon and Jakobi Meyers, Emezie didn’t have as many opportunities as the upperclassmen above him did. That is, until what was arguably his breakout game. On Nov. 18, Emezie played what was his best game as a Wolfpack newcomer. He caught five passes for 67 yards, including a 20-yard touchdown from Ryan Finley in the third quarter of the game in question. The opponent? Wake Forest.
That game, however, is infamous for one of Emezie’s receptions from that game.
With the Wolfpack trailing the Demon Deacons by just six points, Finley orchestrated a 13-play drive that put NC State into the red zone with just under two minutes remaining in regulation. On the 14th play of the drive, Finley found Emezie near the Deacs’ six-yard line. After juking past the initial defender, Emezie took off for the end zone. Demetrius Kemp made contact with the receiver at the one-yard line, prying the ball loose mere inches from the six-point safe haven, and jumped on the fumble inside the end zone for a touchback.
Despite the Wolfpack getting one final drive to turn the game around that ended with an interception in the end zone, NC State’s loss that night in Winston-Salem, fairly or unfairly, was attributed to that fumble that came so close to being the equalizer – and potentially the game-winner following a successful point-after attempt. The Pack would fall from the CFP, AP, and Coaches Poll in the following week, though would earn its way back before season’s end.
Over the course of the four seasons since, Emezie has garnered more than enough goodwill through his play and his leadership to make that error nothing more than a memory of a player that has since grown. His story, though, presented an interesting chapter to be written.
In 2021, NC State played at a borderline elite level. Despite a pair of losses, the Pack remained in the conversation to take the Atlantic Division crown away from the oft lauded Clemson Tigers who’d plummeted from the pedestal it’d earned over the course of nearly a decade. State’s first game in conference play resulted in Devin Leary and company playing the role of Kingslayer, delivering the killing blow to Dabo’s dynastic dreams of dominance as Clemson’s playoff chances were all but eradicated thanks to an opening-week loss to Georgia.
This strong, confident, and experienced team rose to the heights it had sought to achieve seasons ago, but the rise came concurrent with another’s. The thorn in the Wolfpack’s side? Wake Forest.
The story of another North Carolina team making a commensurate rise atop the division standings, coached by another Dave, no less, while the Wolfpack claws and climbs to take advantage of the spot in Charlotte up in the air is, from NC State’s perspective, frustrating. It’s another case of “Just our luck.” But, from a wider scope, it was the perfect story.
There are few better instances of a rivalry with as much history as Wake Forest and NC State’s, and this season’s rendition came to pass with so much at stake. What many considered the de facto ACC Championship Game was on Saturday at Truist Field.
And whether or not it was on the forefront of his mind, Emezie played like he was seeking redemption.
The Waxhaw wideout was Leary’s favorite target versus the Demon Deacons. Emezie hauled in 10 catches for 133 yards. His longest reception was a 28-yard touchdown pass within the last two minutes of the second quarter to cut Wake’s lead to eight points. In the fourth quarter, he scored again, this time on a 13-yard pass. Even after already putting in a career that saw him become the Wolfpack’s all-time leader in receptions, Emezie arguably played his best game in red and white, and his efforts were rewarded with Receiver of the Week honors the following Monday.
With an NC State win in Winston-Salem, the cruel memory of what was remarked as a freshman mistake could be coldly buried beneath a resounding victory with the promise of a shining epilogue on the horizon. If the Pack exited in triumph, Emezie’s story would come full circle.
However, there is no prose in sports. Emeka Emezie’s story, at least in this regard, was out of his control. The dream of redemption ended with a three-point loss for him and the Wolfpack.
For NC State, the image of hoisting the 2021 ACC Championship trophy hasn’t completely vanished. With the right circumstances, the Wolfpack can still get slotted into Bank of America Stadium against the Coastal Division winner. That dream still carries on.
The perfect story to encapsulate the collegiate career of Emeka Emezie, however, is gone. The agency to write that story was taken from him by circumstances outside his control. But even without that arc, Emezie can still be best described as a Wolfpack legend.
He’s still in the position to climb atop the career receiving yards record. He can still aid State’s quest for conference supremacy. There’s still two regular season games and a bowl game, at least, to play for. And when he takes the field for the season finale against North Carolina, he’ll be greeted by a sea of adoring fans who will give one last ovation for a player who gave his all on the gridiron.
Emeka Emezie’s story at NC State is winding down, but the final chapter has yet to be written. Here’s to seeing how this best-seller concludes.