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NC State

Demie Sumo-Karngbaye is making a name for himself

MattCarterby: Matt Carter09/07/22TheWolfpacker
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NC State running back Demie Sumo-Karngbaye (Photo courtesy NC State athletics)

When NC State sophomore running back Demie Sumo-Karngbaye finished off a 24-yard touchdown run at East Carolina Saturday, he had a hard time stopping. So much so that he almost ran into the wall.

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Sumo-Karngbaye was in a hurry Saturday, perhaps too much so, but one can forgive him considering his desire to prove himself at the highest level of college football.

When Sumo-Karngbaye was a versatile playmaker at Willingboro (N.J.) High, he described his recruitment as “pretty rough.”

“I only came out with six or seven offers,” Sumo-Karngbaye recalled, adding that the COVID-19 pandemic played a role in that.

NC State was unique in that group which also included Northern Illinois, Temple and Toledo, among others. The Pack was the lone Power Five school to offer.

“It was just a leap of faith,” Sumo-Karngbaye recalled. “When I committed, I didn’t even tell my family about it.”

“I just wanted the competition, D1 competition, Power Five especially,” he added. “I never even looked at the running back roster. I was just saying, ‘I am coming here. I trust my ability. I trust my athleticism.'”

Yet when Sumo-Karngbaye arrived at NC State, the one coach who recruited him, former Pack receivers coach and co-offensive coordinator George McDonald, had left to take an assistant coaching position at his alma mater, Illinois.

Thus, there was a lot of getting to know each other between player and program. Whether that included referring to Sumo-Karngbaye by his high school nickname is unclear.

At the time, Sumo-Karngbaye went by “Shark.” On his high school highlight film posted on HUDL, he threw in the name “Slimey Shark.”

“I was just a kid,” Sumo-Karngbaye recalled.

Little did he know that his old nickname would be featured on national television during an impressive first performance at East Carolina.

“When ESPN called me that, I was like, ‘How do they know that?'” Sumo-Karngbaye recalled.

While acknowledging the uniqueness of the nickname, Sumo-Karngbaye did not sound like someone who enthusiastically wants to keep the moniker.

“It’s kind of corny to me, I am not going to lie” he said. “It’s like a high school thing.”

Sumo-Karngbaye is more focused on what he does on the field, anyway. He ran 14 times for 79 yards and a score at East Carolina, but he only gave himself a C grade for his performance. Among the areas for improvement he sees are finishing on the goal line and going more vertical instead of sideways on his carries.

He also feels like he needs to slow himself down, and not just when he’s nearly running into a wall in the back of the end zone. He described one of his runs on the goal line as an example.

“I was supposed to slow down on the mesh getting the ball, but I took the ball too fast,” he said.

However, one can excuse Demie 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 drove 7 hours from New Jersey to see him play in Greenville.

“It just felt amazing,” Sumo-Karngbaye said. “My mind was racing.”

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