Minnesota Vikings: Kene Nwangwu a sleeping giant

It’s not all that uncommon for players to be drafted into the NFL with modest college stats, especially if their athletic ability is off the charts like it is for Kene Nwangwu, a fourth-round pick of the Minnesota Vikings. What is uncommon is for players with the type of athleticism you see from Nwangwu to be utilized as little as he was at Iowa State over four healthy seasons.

When it comes to physical and athletic ability, Nwangwu is the total package.

Dating back to 1987, there are only a couple handfuls of players at the running back position with better athletic scores than Nwangwu. As much credit as Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell gets for the job he’s done in Ames, and he deserves it, what in the world happened here?

In four seasons, Nwangwu played in 48 total games for Iowa State. In those 48 games, he had just 150 touches for the offense total. He had another 92 “touches” as a kickoff returner and was twice named an All-American for his efforts in that phase of the game.

Although it’s not like LeBron James showed up to a high school basketball camp, it’s a wonder that the Iowa State program didn’t actively work to get Nwangwu more involved than just 150 total touches on offense over the course of 48 career games.

With his athletic profile, size, and abilities, he should have been getting a minimum of 15-20 touches per game, not including his kickoff return duties.

David Montgomery and Breece Hall are certainly worthy bell-cow backs and will both be playing in the NFL as soon as Hall’s time with the Cyclones is finished, but even considering how good those players are, it’s not like other college programs haven’t shown how to get a bunch of elite prospects at running back involved over the course of a full season.

Alabama routinely has three, four, five NFL-caliber backs on their roster, and none of them seem to be hurting for a place in the backfield timeshare.

Although the mystery of why Nwangwu was not more heavily utilized at Iowa State will remain exactly that, the Minnesota Vikings are going to press forward in 2021 with him in the plans as a kickoff returner and possible RB3 behind Dalvin Cook and Alexander Mattison.

Cook is very clearly the Vikings’ workhorse back when healthy, eating up a significant chunk of the team’s touches in just 14 games last season with 356. The next closest was Mattison at 109.

Perhaps Nwangwu will not be much of a factor offensively in 2021, but the Vikings used a high fourth-round pick on him for a reason. He will certainly be able to play special teams immediately and make his presence felt there, but offensively, how quickly he can seize RB3 or possibly even RB2 duties will be fascinating to watch develop.

Although not quite to this degree, Nwangwu’s slight usage in college with very little reasonable explanation reminds me of Alvin Kamara coming out in the 2017 NFL Draft. Kamara still had 23 total touchdowns over two seasons with Tennessee, but you can’t help but look back at Kamara’s time at Tennessee with fewer than 150 touches in each of his two seasons there and wonder what in the world the coaching staff was thinking.

It’s possible that the Minnesota Vikings will get a similar value out of Nwangwu, although let’s temper those expectations a bit.

Although Kamara is certainly a top-tier example of a player who became a better pro than he was in college, Nwangwu has a long way to go. For now, his focus will be on making sure the Vikings’ coaching staff works to get him touches by making himself indispensable whenever he touches the ball throughout training camp and preseason play.