For Oklahoma DT Jonah Laulu, Goal Line Stands Can 'Snowball,' Just Like When He Snowboards
NORMAN — Maybe Saturday when Oklahoma travels to BYU, Jonah Laulu's can show his teammates around Utah a little.
He’s been to the Beehive State many, many times.
“I go out there every offseason,” Laulu said, “to go snowboarding.”
Laulu himself hails from Las Vegas, where he was a football star at Centennial High School, but he said he’s expecting some 30 family members to show up in Provo when the Sooners and Cougars meet Saturday morning at LaVell Edwards Stadium.
“Most of my family that actually lives in the US, they stay in Utah,” Laulu said. “So yeah, I’m gonna have a lot of people there. … Yeah, a lot of people. It’ll be a nice little sea of red over there. A pond of red.”
Laulu said he prefers the slopes at Brighton, a little east of Salt Lake City and north of Provo.
“I started snowboarding when I was like 17,” he said.
Laulu transferred to Oklahoma last year from Hawaii. He came in as a 260-pound defensive end but moved inside to 3-technique after the 2022 season and has emerged as a key figure for the Sooners — in interviews, where he represented the team at Big 12 Media Days, in the locker room, where he has become a vocal leader, and at the bottom of piles on OU’s occasional goal-line stand, where he stuffs the offensive line into the backfield and creates a wall around the end zone.
Jonah Laulu
Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports
The Sooners have done it three times now this season, with the latest one coming last Saturday against West Virginia.
“It was really cool, the goal line stand,” Laulu said. “That just sets the tone for our defense.”
The Mountaineers had just hit a 49-yard pass to the 3-yard line, so it felt inevitable they would score.
But that’s when the Oklahoma defense gets excited.
“It’s almost like we like to send out that package, almost,” Laulu said. “We don’t like to send it, but like, we’re excited about it. Like, ‘We’re about to stop these guys, they’re not getting that first down, they’re not getting that first down.’ That’s kind of the mentality. You don’t wanna be in that situation. But when that situation comes, we welcome it with open arms and we’re ready to take it on.”
There’s usually carnage when 22 large athletes get together to decide ownership of a 9-foot strip of grass. Things can get ugly.
“It’s violent,” Laulu said. “Being in that pile is never fun. You gotta watch out, watch your eyes, you might get poked or something. I mean, that doesn’t usually happen. But it’s just a mindset. You’ve gotta have controlled aggression, coming out violently with your hands. It’s very technical. You think about it, it’s two big dudes smashing each other, that’s what you think. But there’s a lot of technique that comes into it that’s involved.”
Oklahoma recorded an all-time goal line stand against Texas in what became a dramatic 34-30 victory. A week later, OU stuffed UCF at the goal line until a celebration penalty after the third-down stop proved costly in an eventual 31-29 win. And in last week’s blowout of WVU, they did it again.
“I just think, especially from the first time we had that package introduced, every time we send it out, we stop them,” Laulu said. “It’s like a snowball effect. It just keeps rollin’ and everybody gets more pumped up and just ready for the next play, the next play, the next play to stop them. And you can see every time we stop them, everybody’s celebrating and happy because we know we’re not about to let them score.”
Laulu, a sixth-year senior who’s played in 63 college football games, knows a thing or two about a snowball effect. It’s part of the growth process for any young snowboarder.
“Scorpioned a couple times,” he said with a laugh. “Had to check my pants one time, had to make sure I didn't — naw. But snowboarding, I don't know, it was just really fun. From Vegas, we have mountains out there and I ended up going for free one time with my neighbor because they won some, like, thing and went snowboarding and ever since then. It was really fun.”
Trying to picture the 6-foot-6, 289-pound Laulu soaring into a halfpipe on a snowboard takes a little imagination. Yes, he confirmed, he’s usually the biggest dude on the slopes.
Jonah Laulu celebrates a goal line stop against UCF.
SARAH PHIPPS/THE OKLAHOMAN-USA TODAY NETWORK
“Yeah. The bigger you are, the harder you’re going to fall,” he said. “It does accumulate damage.”
Falling on a snowboard isn’t fun, he said with another laugh.
“You've got to through trials and tribulations,” Laulu said. “I would say do it. … They have little bunny hills. It is a little — kind of makes you feel some type of way when you've got like, 5-year-olds passing you. You're like, 'Dang.' But it's really fun though. I'd say it's really fun.”
There’s a technique to falling to minimize the “damage” Laulu referred to, but even that’s not mastered right away.
“Not your face,” he said. “Yeah, I had to learn to try to just fall on your butt. But sometimes — just control what you can control.”
Much like football — do your job, do what the coach says, control what you can control, and most times you’ll be fine.
As a player at Hawaii, Laulu played against BYU twice. The Rainbow Warriors were 1-1 against the Cougars when Laulu was there, and it’s a pretty intense rivalry.
“First time we played them in Provo, lost, and second time we played them in Hawaii and beat them,” he said. “It was a great feeling. There's a little bit of a history there. Always saying ‘B-Y-Who’ back in Hawaii. That's what they would say. It was very interesting to see that coming in as a younger guy. We played them when I was a freshman and then a redshirt freshman so it was really cool being part of that.”
Laulu’s history might suggest he was once on BYU’s radar. His mother grew up in New Zealand, and her family is from Western Samoa. BYU is at the forefront of the Mormon faith and the school has a massive Polynesian culture; about 40 members of the current roster are of Polynesian descent (head coach Kalani Sitake is Tongan-American). But Laulu said he never considered the Cougars as an option coming out as a high school recruit.
“I did grow up Mormon. A lot of Polynesian people are Mormon,” he said. “But I mean, I never thought of going to BYU growing up. I kind of slowly stopped going to that church and everything. Nothing against BYU, it’s a great program, it’s a great school, but it was just — I have a couple friends that went there. They had a great experience. They have a great community, a great fan base and everything. But it was just not for me.”
What is for him is submarining running backs on goal-line stands and soaring down the slopes on a snowboard. Unfortunately he’ll have the opportunity this weekend to do just one of those — although if he could, he might try to fit in both.
“Utah's just a very beautiful place with those snowy mountains,” Laulu said. “Oklahoma, we don't really have mountains. But yeah, they have a bunch of resorts out there you can snowboard. I like it because it's nice. They have different trails. It's not too hard. Definitely not professional. I like to just cruise through. Stay away from trees.”
