Oklahoma Early Enrollees: Why DE P.J. Adebawore Wasn't Always a Football Guy

After rising from an unranked high school player to a 5-star on every college team's list, Adebawore is now ready to continue his ascent at Oklahoma.

John E. Hoover | Jan 19, 2023

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Oklahoma Sooners

Editor’s Note: This is Part 1 of a 14-part series on Oklahoma’s early enrollees in the 2023 recruiting class.

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Many times, graduating high school early and launching one’s college football career pays off. Many times, it doesn’t.

While early enrollees are navigating new realms of pain and commitment, a lot of their friends are back home — playing basketball, running track or just hanging out and taking full advantage of the affliction known as “senioritis.”

In Oklahoma’s case, 14 newcomers have chosen to make that sudden transition from boys to men. Jerry Schmidt’s winter workouts might seem impossible at first, and then the summer grind is even harder. In between, the coaching staff takes over, and spring football practice puts them ahead of their summer counterparts.

In this series, AllSooners leads up to National Signing Day on Feb. 1 by examining each of the 14 newcomers and projects their impact on Brent Venables’ football team in 2023.

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It seems impossible to comprehend now, but P.J. Adebawore and football almost never met.

“Me? Oh, I was a hooper,” Adebawore told AllSooners. “I was ‘Ball is life.’ I thought I was gonna be in the NBA. Growing up, I played basketball all my life. I never thought I’d be playing football, honestly.”

But once he picked up the game — the game where his older brother became a star at Northwestern, and his younger brother could have the potential to be the best of them all — Adebawore’s path was set.

P.J. Adebawore :: John E. Hoover / AllSooners

Football was life, and basketball eventually fell by the wayside.

“Just because I want to focus on football more. I want to go full throttle,” Adebawore said. “But I definitely would want to. I love basketball. It’s just not in my best interests right now in terms of getting right for football. It definitely helps.

“There’s other things in the offseason I can be working on, like just lifting more.”

DE P.J. Adebawore

6-5, 240
Kansas City
247 Sports: 5-star, No. 26 overall, No. 4 DE
Rivals: 4-star, No. 35 overall, No. 3 DE
On3: 5-star, No. 4 overall, No. 2 DE
ESPN: 4-star, No. 57 overall, No. 7 DE

Background: Adebawore didn’t play defensive end until his junior season. He blossomed as a junior and exploded as a senior, using his 7-foot-plus wingspan to bring down enemy quarterbacks and showing surprising physicality and toughness in the run game. He has a high motor, a curious mind an aggressive attitude.

2023 Projection: Adebawore is still in the raw phase of his football development, but he’s unnaturally talented. He’ll learn nuances of the pass rush game from his teammates, like Reggie Grimes, Ethan Downs and R Mason Thomas, and certainly from DE coach Miguel Chavis. But in terms of physical ability, he’s read to step in and make an impact for the Sooners from Day 1.

He’ll get plenty of that starting next week when Adebawore and the other 13 newcomers in the 2023 recruiting class are initiated into the Jerry Schmidt winter weight training club.

Adebawore comes to OU as a 6-foot-5, 240-pound athletic freak, an assassin’s mindset with 7-foot wingspan who plays low to the ground. In Norman, he’ll comfortably play at 275 pounds — someday.

His rise up the recruiting rankings was rare. Within a year at North Kansas City High School, he went from an unknown, unranked, zero-star high school football player to a 5-star, almost can’t-miss college football prospect.

“For one,” he said, “I didn’t play d-line for very long.”

Once his coaches taught him basic pass rush techniques and turned him loose, his talent was unmistakable.

Now, in small group sessions and in the full-blown learning sessions of spring practice, he’ll be coached intensely by Chavis.

Adebawore can’t wait.

“Oh, definitely. He knows how to really level it up,” Adebawore said. “He’s a serious dude with high energy. There’s just something that I’ve honestly never seen.”

Oklahoma’s 2023 early enrollees

Jan. 19: DE P.J. Adebawore
Jan. 20: QB Jackson Arnold
Jan. 21: C Joshua Bates
Jan. 22: Peyton Bowen
Jan. 23: CB Kendel Dolby
Jan. 24: OT Cayden Green
Jan. 25: RB Kalib Hicks
Jan. 26: DE Derrick LeBlanc
Jan. 27: DB Erik McCarty
Jan. 28: LB Phil Picciotti
Jan. 29: DT Ashton Sanders
Jan. 30: RB Daylan Smothers
Jan. 31: DB Makari Vickers
Feb. 1: CB Jasiah Wagoner

How explosive is Adebawore (pronounced “add-a-BAR-ay”)? In addition to his love for hoops, he also ran track in high school — the 4 x 100 relay, the shot put, the long jump and the triple jump. How’s that for a unique combination?

Adebawore pointed out that North KC has produced plenty of big-time talent before, like his big brother, Adetomiwa, who’s on his way to the NFL, and Domonique Orange, who’s at Iowa State, and Edric Hill, who’s headed to Alabama. That information, along with the undeniable results of Adebawore’s high school video, led Oklahoma to him.

“They saw my summer tape and they saw all they needed to see and went ahead and passed me that offer,” he said. “Then more started coming throughout the season.”

Despite offers from Georgia, USC, Florida State, Texas A&M, Oregon, Tennessee, Michigan, LSU, Miami and others, he only wanted to play for Oklahoma. OU offered on Feb. 11, he visited Norman on June 3, committed on July 10 — and never really entertained any other overtures.

“I already knew,” he said. “I was like, ‘You know what? I’m not gonna wait when I already know.’ ”

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Published Jan 19, 2023

JOHN E. HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.