Washington State’s Onyeukwu making quick work of his short stint in Pullman

PULLMAN – The college experience is going by at warp speed for Chima Onyeukwu.

As one of only 15 junior college transfers on Washington State’s football team, the redshirt junior linebacker has three years to squeeze in what nearly 100 of his teammates have four or five years to achieve.

What Onyeukwu’s doing is similar to what an ill-prepared college student does the night before a midterm exam.

At least he crams well.

“He knows he has to have a year, he knows it’s make or break right now,” outside linebackers coach Roy Manning said. “Even with another year after this one. And I think that’s the sense of urgency we need from every guy on this team, that we can’t wait, we all have to be right now.”

Right now, Onyeukwu is challenging to be the Cougars’ starting Rush linebacker. That in itself shows the kind of leap the Contra Costa College (Calif.) transfer has made up the depth chart in only two weeks.

When fall camp began on Aug. 2, Onyeukwyu was rightfully buried behind Frankie Luvu and Dylan Hanser, who’d each played in at least 12 games last season. Onyeukwu, meanwhile, used a redshirt year to get up to speed.

But the Pittsburg, California, native didn’t seem to take a single play off during the Cougars’ seven-day stint at Lewiston’s Sacajawea Junior High and made up some significant ground on Hanser, who’s been limited as of late. Onyeukwu and Luvu have split the first-team repetitions since WSU returned to Pullman.

“The best thing he’s doing this camp besides playing fast – which lets me know, hey he knows what he’s doing now – is that I haven’t had to correct him a lot,” Manning said. “And when I have corrected him, he’s got it corrected, he’s got it fixed. I haven’t had to repeat myself, hey do this again, do this.”

Onyeukwu knows his time in Pullman is abbreviated – as a transfer he has three years to play two – and the room for error is not what it might be for a younger teammate who can probably afford a mistake or two and still climb back into the good graces of the coaches before becoming an upperclassman.

“Nineteen days to go, he needs every one of them,” defensive coordinator Alex Grinch said. “But a guy we see factoring in.”

Onyeukwu was responsible for a few bone-crushing hits during the Cougars’ Lewiston detour. Near the end of day five, he flattened running back James Williams in a head-to-head collision that left both the offensive player and the football on the ground.

At the junior college level, he was reputed as one of the All-Pacific 7 League’s top blitzers, and registered seven sacks, 11 tackles-for-loss and 57 tackles as a sophomore.

“I just love hitting people,” said Onyeukwu, a lifelong basketball player who decided to give football a try when a few friends tugged him onto the gridiron his freshman year at Pittsburgh High.

He was already wired for it.

“He’s just a physical specimen,” Manning said. “You see him take his shirt off, it’s like ‘Wow, this guy has lifted a few weights before.’ And again, just the speed. That’s our calling card here. Speed D, man.”

Even with the physical tools that most colleges desire, both Chima and younger brother Chibu, a defensive end who played at nearby Deer Valley High School, went largely underrecruited. So both chose the junior college route and delivered consecutive league titles to Contra Costa. Then the letters came flowing in.

Fresno State and the University of Central Florida offered both brothers, but Chima had long dreamt of playing Pac-12 ball – “everyone in the Bay Area wanted to” – so the “Speed D” movement in Pullman seemed like a good fit. Chibu stayed in California and signed with San Diego State.

Both gleaned essential experience as redshirts in 2016 and figure to be on their respective two-deeps when the season opens on Sept. 2.

“I’m just trying to get one percent better each day and doing what I can do to help the team win,” Onyeukwu said.

The Cougars continue fall camp at 3:30 Tuesday afternoon with a practice at Martin Stadium. They’ll practice at 3:30 on Wednesday, 2:30 on Thursday and 3:30 on Friday leading up to Saturday’s 7:30 p.m. scrimmage on Saturday.