How Oklahoma LB Owen Heinecke's Unusual Offseason Helped him Improve his Game

NORMAN — Owen Heinecke’s offseason was anything but routine.

“Definitely been a weird six, seven months for me,” the Oklahoma linebacker said Tuesday ahead of preseason camp opening later this week. “But it’s been awesome.

Heinecke found out his eligibility was in question late last season, had his request for an additional season denied by the NCAA multiple times, participated in the Senior Bowl and the NFL Combine, then won an injunction against the NCAA granting that additional season of eligibility — for now.

But how did that unusual course of events affect Heinecke’s development as a player entering the 2026 season with the Sooners?

“It was definitely a unique experience,” Heinecke said. “But I was able to kind of get a sneak peek of what all these NFL scouts think of me and what these coaches want from me moving forward.

“At the combine, coaches and scouts alike were giving me feedback from my season as we went through film or we watched their team’s film, saying, ‘Hey, we want you to work more on this, so we need you to be better here.’ So to come back and have a year in college to kind of develop that skill set going forward, I think is a huge head start for me, and one that I’m really excited about.”

There’s still plenty of development on the table for Heinecke, who walked on at Oklahoma after starting his collegiate career as a lacrosse player at Ohio State.

The linebacker went from scout-team fodder to special-teams standout to fringe rotational player and finally, last season, became one of the central figures in the Sooners’ defense.

“He cares deeply about the team,” Sooners coach Brent Venables said. “He’s consumed about the team, and I mean I can’t say that enough. He shows up in the building every day, trying to raise the standard, and ‘what can I do?’ He wants to do more constantly. When you care more, you’ll do more, and when you do more, that’s what it looks like as far as having a chance to have a championship type of locker room.”

Among the things Heinecke took away from his experience interacting with NFL coaches and scouts was his need to be a bigger physical presence.

“I like to be a slippery linebacker,” Heinecke said, “and some of those times in the box, you don’t want to be slippery because you get pushed out of gaps. You want to be physical. I’m not 6-4, 245 pounds, I’m 6-1, 230, so I’ve got to find the combination of when to be physical and also use my size to my advantage. So kind of learning those things and knowing what I need to work on for fall camp is something I’m really excited for.”

There is still some uncertainty for Heinecke, as the NCAA is expected to appeal the decision.

But Heinecke has pushed any thoughts of that onto the back burner, saying he trusts his legal team and often learns about developments in his case through the media since the injunction was granted.

“I’ve been sheltered from a lot of it, which has definitely helped me to compartmentalize,” Heinecke said. “It is a lingering thought but all I’m focused on right now is fall camp. That’s all I want to be focused on.”

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