Newcomer Profile: How Hard Work, Humility and Attitude Put Danny Okoye in Position to Play for Oklahoma

Coaches and teammates say the Sooners' 4-star defensive end is a "freak" athlete, but it's the intangibles that give him a shot to play right away.

Oklahoma defensive end Danny Okoye / BRYAN TERRY/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY

NORMAN — Danny Okoye has wasted no time getting his college football career started.

Coming out of homeschool in Tulsa, Okoye knew he had a long way to go to catch up to his Oklahoma teammates. So after dominating one last time in high school — he was a force of nature in the U.S. Army Bowl — he got to Norman in January and immediately went to work.

And it shows.

“I weighed in first day of testing at 233 pounds,” Okoye said last month, “and I’m at 255 pounds now.”

A 6-foot-4 edge rusher with a thick frame, long arms, unfair quickness (he said he ran the 40 in 4.56 seconds) and insane athletic ability, Okoye was a 4-star recruit with a 5-star work ethic.

“Danny’s a freak,” said fellow incoming freshman defensive end Nigel Smith.

Head coach Brent Venables agrees.

“His talent is freakish,” Venables said.

The thing about Okoye is he’s not just a superior athlete. He has the kind of humility and attitude that college coaches would like to clone. And he sees the work that lies ahead of him not as work, but as an opportunity.

Okoye made high school football look easy because it was. But unlike some freshmen, he hasn’t run away from anything at OU — especially the hard stuff.

“I didn’t expect it to be easy,” Okoye said. “Like I said, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But I take that as a challenge, and I enjoy it. I chose to embrace it, and once you make that decision, it gets pretty easy. You just do what you need to do.”

It’s become the norm for college football prospects to forego their final semester of high school and give up the “fun” half of their senior year — Venables welcomed 24 of them in January, by far the most ever at OU. But most of them are still just 17 years old. Okoye could be kicking back, running track, hanging with his pals, planning for prom. Instead, he chose to carve out his own space in Jerry Schmidt’s weight room and start proving things to his new teammates.

The hardest part, he said, was surviving the physical grind.

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“Winter workouts. Coaching stations. Mat drills,” he said. “No one’s ever gonna say that they’re easy. But it’s just something you need to do, and once you accomplish it, the sense of accomplishment is really satisfying.”

“They did a nice job at NOAH in getting him to the point,” Venables said. “And he’s been a guy that’s a football junkie. Worked on his craft alone. He’s got great humility, great self-awareness. Really intelligent young guy. Has really worked hard at developing his game.” 

He’s worked hard at everything, like adding bulk. Lifting weights builds muscle, of course, but it won’t add 20 pounds in two months. So how did Okoye do it?

“Eat everything,” he said. “You gotta eat everything. They say graze like a cow so you can work like a dog. So I’ve just been trying to do that.” 

That’s half the battle. The other half is a willingness to push himself beyond whatever limits Okoye thought he had in the weight room.

“I’ve improved personally as much as I can,” he said, “getting stronger in the weight room, getting faster, better get-off, better hands, all that type of stuff — just so we can get ready for spring ball, summer, fall camp, all that stuff. So just being proactive.”

Spring football at OU is at the halfway point. Practice concludes with the annual Spring Game on April 20. Okoye is looking forward to seeing how far he’s come so far, how he measures up. Being mentored by senior Ethan Downs and junior R Mason Thomas has been huge, he said, and having sophomore P.J. Adebawore as his “big brother” has eased his transition to college football.

“Those are the three main guys I’ve kind of made my circle,” Okoye said. “There’s so much experience and knowledge in that group right there. P.J. was a true freshman not too long ago, so he’s kind of the one I relate to the most. Our playing styles are kind of similar, so he knows what I mean when I say certain things, which is kind of nice to have. 

“But he was the one who was selected as my big brother in the Big Brother program, and that was a big benefit to me, staying up late nights, learning new calls and stuff. It’s been nice to have just someone like that in your corner helping you out wherever you need it.”

That’s been important as Okoye tries to pick up the nuances of Venables’ defense.

“Playing college football is a lot different than playing homeschool football,” he said. “Being able to be in a program where you’re kind of overseeing a lot of different things, it’s like simpler football. It kind of breaks down the game a little bit. So going from that to this, you know, Coach Venables’ defense is one of the most complicated in college football. So going from that to this is a big adjustment. But being able to understand the game of football really helps. It’s all about football IQ, and once you get that down, it’s pretty simple.”

At NOAH, Okoye played defensive end, middle linebacker, tight end, wide receiver and even punter. Don’t laugh, he can flat out kick the football.

And that’s where Venables, defensive ends coach Miguel Chavis and maybe even the rest of the OU defensive staff find one of Okoye’s most endearing qualities.

“I’m looking forward to whatever opportunity I get,” Okoye said. “I already told them, you know, ‘Wherever you need me, just put me there. I’ll do whatever you need me to do.’ And we got a new special teams coordinator (Doug Deakin), so I’m sure I’ll be talking to him a lot pretty soon. So wherever they can use me on the field, that’s where I want to be used. Whether that’s playing a lot of plays or not playing as many plays as I played in high school.”

Okoye said being homeschooled helped prepare him for the academic rigors at OU, especially all the online learning opportunities. But he also acknowledges that college football at times has seemed like it’s coming at him a million miles an our.

“I’m not gonna lie. At first, it was just crazy,” he said. “You have meeting after meeting, you’re finding out thing after thing that you’ve got to remember. I took notes, and the notes were just like, so much stuff. But then after you slow it all down and you get used to the schedule and the way the things operate, it gets a little easier. 

“Even going from high school, there’s more structure here. They just tell you where you gotta be, what time you gotta be there and what you gotta do when you’re there. And then you just gotta do that. So I kind of like that aspect of it. But yeah, it was kind of difficult to adjust to at first, but I think I got the hang of it now.”