Oklahoma DE Adepoju Adebawore Not Satisfied With Strong Start to 2026 Season

NORMAN — Adepoju Adebawore ensured his first Oklahoma start was a memorable one.

The senior defensive end logged a sack and three total tackles, all while needing to play just 35 defensive snaps in the Sooners’ 51-0 win over UTEP on Friday.

“It was great. It was a very good feeling,” Adebawore said on Monday. “It's a very big honor to start off on that field for a school like Oklahoma, so very, very honored.”

Even on plays where he didn’t end up with a tackle, he was disruptive.

Adebawore lived in the backfield, backing up the praise he drew throughout camp. He finished with a 72.8 grade per Pro Football Focus, which was second among the OU defensive linemen who played in the first half (Taylor Wein received a 73.5 grade). But while the start to the season was positive, Adebawore believes the defense has more to give.

“I think I played OK,” he said. “I had some good moments, some highs and some lows. But still a lot to clean up in my game.”

The OU defense has a different task this week — quieting The Big House. The No. 11 Sooners will travel to Ann Arbor for the first time in just the third-ever meeting with Michigan.

The pair of blue bloods had drastically different Week 1 experiences. Oklahoma breezed past the Miners, while the Wolverines won with a Hail Mary as time expired, officially at least, in a battle that probably should have gone the way of Western Michigan.

Michigan’s struggles are irrelevant to the Sooners’ preparations this week, and Adepoju is ready for the challenge of performing in the biggest football stadium in the country.

“I’ve never been over there,” he said. “So yeah, very, very excited to go play in a big stadium like that.”

Reinforcements are on the way for OU’s defense, too.

Defensive end Danny Okoye is expected to make his 2026 debut on Saturday after he was held out of the opener, where he will be tossed back into a rotation that features Wein and Wyatt Gilmore opposite Adebawore.

“I think that showed we were able to play a lot of players,” Adebawore said. “We have a lot of talent in that room, so we have a lot of guys that we can roll through, a lot of guys we have trust in to be able to uphold that standard on that field.”

Adebawore played 17 defensive snaps in last year’s victory over the Wolverines, so he knows what to expect from quarterback Bryce Underwood, but overall he believes the team is in a strong position entering the first road test of the season.

“Knowing that we still have to get better and we still were able to get 51 points (against UTEP), that shows that our talent is still just a lot,” he said. “We have a lot of talent, natural talent.

“But I think if we can put that together with technique in everything we do, we'll be an even better, complete football team.”

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