Football, engine repair, TikTok. In short, that's the life of Washburn running back Jaden Abongo, Jr.

On Saturdays this fall, you can find him carrying the ball for the Ichabods offense. Every day of the week, however, you can find him working on cars, fixing engines and hanging out with his teammates on his hugely popular social media channels.
As of this week, Abongo has nearly 236,000 followers on TikTok, over 105,000 followers on Instagram and several thousand more across platforms like Facebook and YouTube.

His videos are relatable, unique and undeniably funny. Those parts have never been difficult for the native of Brookfield, Missouri, but it took a nudge from some teammates to finally take the leap into content creation.

"I've always been kind of creative, but I've also been kind of reserved, quiet to myself," Abongo said. "I've always kind of been funny, had jokes. I've been pushed by some of my teammates, like Anthony Wenson and Declan Battle, they're like, 'You need to record this, you could change your life with this,' and I was like, 'All right, we'll give it a shot.'"

Abongo took the dive, changed his major to mass media, and the results have been staggering.

"So from January until now, I've posted every day on TikTok, and I set a goal for 'x' amount followers or whatever, and it just kind of snowballed."

Abongo's videos hit on plenty of different parts of everyday life, and they showcase that humor, life as a college football player, small-town living and much more. That small-town life, coming from a hometown with just over 4,000 residents, helped spark his interest in car and engine repairs, something seen in a massive number of his videos.

"My dad's favorite thing is to get junk cars, and just keep buying them," Abongo said. "When I got to high school, I was like, 'Well, we're in a small town, I'll figure out how to fix them.' So I took auto mechanics for my junior and senior year, so the first four hours of high school every day I was just working in a shop, and I kind of learned and then it just snowballed from there."

Even with that background and education, one of the pivotal moments for Abongo came when he finished a project he'd never tried before, swapping a motor for a friend of a friend back home.

"I'd never swapped a motor before, but he's like, 'You should just do it, I told him you'd do it,'" Abongo said. "I was like, I've never done that before. And then I did it, ended up just doing it…after that, I was like, 'Oh, I can do this for real.'"

When you blow up as much as Abongo has on social media, videos and content can reach all corners of society. Sometimes, it leads to interacting with celebrities, like one with a song Abongo listens to constantly.

"There's this country artist, his name is Jason Michael Carroll," Abongo said. "He commented on one of my videos something like, 'You're a funny fella, I hope to see you at a show,' I said 'Brother, you have no idea.'"

There's a groundedness and a sense of community in all of this for Abongo, no matter how brightly his social media star shines. And football continues to be the root of that feeling, and he takes pride in getting to shine a light on some of teammates who may not get the same kind of attention as he does.

"It is the biggest blessing," Abongo said. "I've always kind of been able to work on stuff and do whatever, but to be able to showcase somebody who may not get showcased in the way they would in a different light, it's just amazing."

Abongo and the Ichabods will open the 2026 football season on Saturday, Aug. 29 on the road against the Truman State Bulldogs.

To hear the full conversation with Washburn running back Jaden Abongo, Jr., check out this week's episode of The Ichabod Pod.