OU lands Jonah Laulu

If you want to say this is the first defensive line win for Oklahoma’s new staff, you won’t get too many arguments.

Hawaii defensive lineman Jonah Laulu announced he’s coming to the Sooners on Thursday afternoon, ending an intense week where he picked up offers from a who’s who in college football.

Laulu started 18 games for Hawaii over the last two seasons. He had 59 tackles, including 13 tackles for loss and 5.5 sacks. Narrowing things down to this year, he had 34 tackles with eight for loss and four sacks.

Listed at 6-foot-6 and 280 pounds, Laulu is originally from Las Vegas and was a two-star recruit for the 2018 class.

He’ll be a redshirt senior for OU in 2022, but because of the COVID rule, he will have two seasons of eligibility remaining.

Laulu entered the portal early last week, and then the parade began. OU was joined by the likes of Georgia, USC, LSU, Miami and Washington, among several others to attempt to get Laulu to join.

In his commitment tweet, he tagged first-year defensive ends coach Miguel Chavis. He’s never been a position coach before, but Chavis is already showing what kind of impact he might be able to make for the Sooners.

Laulu becomes the fourth transfer addition for head coach Brent Venables and the second one this week, joining former UCF quarterback Dillon Gabriel.

Laulu is the first defensive transfer as OU has done work offensively with tight end Daniel Parker (Missouri) and offensive guard McKade Mettauer (Cal). The Sooners are not done yet in the portal and keep checking off the boxes of positions they have to address heading into next season.