Prince Tega Wanogho Jr. arrived in America in 2014 with dreams of playing in the NBA. Fast forward five years and now the Nigerian-born offensive lineman is a preseason All-SEC first teamer, and is pursuing his new dream of becoming an NFL player.
“When I moved to the United States in 2014, my end goal was the NBA,” Wanogho wrote his on Twitter and Instagram posts announcing his decision to return to Auburn. "That goal has now switched over to the NFL, and I am ready to do what it takes to be the best candidate I can be.”
When Wanogho moved to Montgomery, Alabama, from Delta State, Nigeria, he knew nothing about football other than what he had seen in movies. He grew up playing soccer and basketball. When he started attending school at Edgewood Academy, his plan was to play on the basketball team and earn a basketball scholarship for college.
Before the basketball season started, then-head football coach Bobby Carr invited Wanogho to attend a football practice. At the practice Wanogho asked if he could run the 40-yard dash, and his time was 4.64 seconds. Suddenly, Wanogho found himself immersed in the world of American football as he joined Edgewood’s football team.
He played in 13 games that season for Edgewood as a defensive end. He also played basketball, but during the season he broke his leg. That injury helped Wanogho decide to pursue football instead of basketball and also set up another move for him, the switch from defense to offense.
“Football started being a big deal for me when I broke my leg in high school playing basketball,” Wanogho said during SEC Media Days. “After that, I told my mom I am going to play football and stick to it since I got hurt playing basketball and I ended up with scholarships.”
He received offers from 28 Division-I schools, and he ultimately committed to Auburn as a defensive player. Wanogho has never played defense during his time at Auburn. He redshirted at Auburn during the 2015 football season while recovering from the broken leg.
In early 2016, Wanogho was switched from a defensive lineman to an offensive linemen. He played in 10 games that season as a reserve offensive tackle. In 2017, he started seven games at left tackle, and in 2018 he started all of Auburn’s 13 games at left tackle. The switch from the defensive line to the offensive line is one Wanogho says was relatively smooth and was made easier by the short amount of time he had been playing football overall.
“I would say just the play calling,” Wanogho said when asked about the position change . “Just understanding the concepts of the plays. That’s pretty much it. I wasn’t playing football for that long so I was new to the game. ... It wasn’t really that bad of a transition for me because I wasn’t really playing D-Line for that long. So it was a smooth transition.”
While Wanogho was making the transitions from basketball to football and then from defense to offense, he was still adjusting to life in the United States versus his home in Nigeria.
Delta State is the ninth-largest Nigerian state with a population of approximately 4,112,445 people. The largest city is Warri and the capital is Asaba. Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa with 186 million people living there.
Something Wanogho likes to do occasionally when talking about his home is to see just what people will believe based on misconceptions about Africa. He admitted that the pet giraffe he has talked about on Twitter is not real. Bobo the giraffe was created as a joke after people asked him things like if he had a pet tiger or a pet lion.
Wanogho often jokes about having a pet giraffe or getting scratched by a tiger, but the reality is he grew up in a city, not in the middle of the savanna.
“It’s a city,” Wanogho answers when asked about where he grew up. “It’s not as developed as the United States, but Nigeria actually has cities.”
He does not fault people for their misconceptions because he realizes they haven’t been as exposed to information about Africa as he was to information about the United States.
Wanogho grew up watching America movies, which helped teach him about the culture he would become a part of later in his life.
“You actually see a perspective of America in your mind,” Wanogho said. “But at the same time, coming here it’s the same but it’s different because now you’re here.”
Part of what motivated Wanogho to return to Auburn for his senior season is a lesson he was taught growing up.
“Whenever I start something, I always want to finish it,” Wanogho said. “That’s how I grew up. Yeah, this is gonna be my last year. The NFL is going to be there if that’s what God has planned for me.”
For the 2019 college football season, Wanogho is one of five starters returning to Auburn’s offensive line.
Last year the O-Line struggled due to inexperience and injuries. With every starter returning for Auburn’s offensive line, inexperience will no longer be a problem and the added familiarity the players have with each other will be a big benefit in Wanogho’s opinion.
“Experience is just — it’s not just experience alone, because that brewed chemistry from playing in games like, playing alongside someone who played or a veteran guy," Wanogho said. “… We all trust ourselves, and guess what, we’re going to do our jobs. That actually, the experience actually comes with that. I trust everybody that they’re going to do their job and actually put us in a good situation.”
The criticism from last year regarding the offensive line’s performance has been used as motivation this year and has helped give the offensive line a new mindset going into this season.
“We are playing with a chip on our shoulder,” Wanogho said. “We got something to prove, and we are gonna play like that. We got a goal to reach so we are gonna play like that.”
The goal for every team is to win not only its division, but also the national championship. Auburn thinks they have a shot at both this year.
“You know, this will be my tenth year at Auburn,” said Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn. “During that time, we played for two national championships. We won one. We played for three SEC championships. We won two. And when I look at the team that we have this year, there's some of the same characteristics that those championship teams had, and that's what's exciting for me.”
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