ARKANSAS STATE FOOTBALL

Oku finds place to restart career

Arkansas State running back David Oku is getting a second chance at college football after leaving Tennessee in 2011. Oku, a top prospect in 2009, began talking with ASU Coach Gus Malzahn in the spring and signed with the Red Wolves in the summer.
Arkansas State running back David Oku is getting a second chance at college football after leaving Tennessee in 2011. Oku, a top prospect in 2009, began talking with ASU Coach Gus Malzahn in the spring and signed with the Red Wolves in the summer.

— In late spring, David Oku’s daily routine ran counter to expectations of a touted running back prospect who signed with an SEC program.

Oku, rated as the No. 2 recruit at his position in 2009, rose from his bed and drove to the offices of Global Life Insurance in his native Oklahoma City.

“Handling big numbers and crunching numbers, working with people’s policies and things like that,” Oku, 22, said of the job he held down for the past year after his football career took a detour after two middling seasons at Tennessee.

Oku, who was recruited to Tennessee during Lane Kiffin’s one-year run, left Knoxville in July 2011 after butting heads with new Volunteers Coach Derek Dooley and running into trouble with the law.

Oku went home and stayed off the radar of Football Bowl Subdivision programs while working out and holding down a day job. Until this spring, when a series of e-mail exchanges with Coach Gus Malzahn led to an on-campus visit, a scholarship offer and spot for Oku in a Red Wolves backfield needy for production after losing its top runner, Derek Lawson, and whose top two returners combined for just 475 yards.

For Oku, punching a clock and 40-hour work weeks helped put him on the road to Jonesboro.

“Working out, I continuously thought, ‘Am I done with football?’ ” Oku said. “You just get up every day and continue to push.”

Two weeks into camp, Oku has earned work with the second-team offense as the Red Wolves continue to install Malzahn’s no-huddle offense. Oku rushed three times for 19 yards in ASU’s first scrimmage last week and is expected to see more work when the Red Wolves scrimmage again today.

“Any time you sit out a year, there is a time to get back in shape mentally and physically,” Malzahn said. “I’ll be really curious throughout fall camp, and I’m hoping everything will click and he’ll have a good understanding of the offense.”

But Malzahn, who recruited Oku while he was offensive coordinator at Auburn, said he detected a change in Oku after an 18-month hiatus.

“You can tell he’s a mature young man,” Malzahn said. “He’s been through the recruiting [process], he’s been at a high-profile place and dealt with a lot of things. He’s very humble now, and very appreciative to be here. He has earned the respect of his teammates.”

Malzahn has said Oku will be limited solely to running back and kick returns, but the role could expand over time.

Oku, 5-10, 185 pounds, offers skills that blend with third-year sophomore Frankie Jackson and the bruising between the-tackles style of Sirgregory Thornton.

Running backs coach Eli Drinkwitz said the staff is content to let Oku’s play define his usage.

“He’s going be something, that’s all we know,” Drinkwitz said. “We want to find out his strengths, evaluate them and play to those..”

At Tennessee, Oku’s arrival was heralded, along with top running back recruit Bryce Brown, as an omen of future triumphs under Kiffin.

Oku finished his freshman season with 94 yards on 23 carries, but became a stalwart as a kickoff returner, piling up a school-record 833 yards on 33 returns and ranking second in the SEC with an average of 26.1 yards per return.

But Kiffin made a controversial exit that winter, and Oku’s style didn’t mesh with Dooley, who called out Oku for“tippy-toeing and searching” during carries and questioned the running back’s effort.

Oku totaled 174 yards on 42 carries his second season, 77 of those coming in the season opener yards against Tennessee-Martin. He averaged 19.5 yards on 16 kick returns, a significant decline from his freshman performance.

“I really don’t know,” Oku said of the change in his relationship with Dooley. “I’d always go back, question myself and look at the film. I wanted to see what I thought I was doing wrong. That’s the only thing you can do.”

Oku announced in January 2011 his intention to transfer after the spring semester - one of six players from Kiffin’s heralded class that left the Volunteers.

Matters didn’t improve when Oku was arrested in July 2011 on domestic assault charges after quarreling with a woman he lived with at an off campus apartment. But Oku’s record was expunged along with any records pertaining to the incident, according to the Knoxville Municipal Court.

Oku returned to Oklahoma and tried to avoid any public attention.

“Everybody already knew what I did, but nobody needed to know except me what I was doing,” Oku said. “A lot of the things that happened, I did to myself.”

Oku concentrated on shedding weight he felt hindered his shiftiness and explosion in the open field and reconnected with Carl Albert Coach Gary Rose.

Until he fired off an e-mail to see if there was a potential spot at Arkansas State, with the former Auburn offensive coordinator’s presence the biggest draw.

The exchanges led to an on campus visit, and ultimately signing a letter of intent June 27.

Malzahn’s first words didn’t come as a shock: “I hope you’re in shape and conditioned.”

Oku already knew the translation, too.

“You might want to get ready to die in practice,” he said.

David Oku glance

AGE 22

HT/WT 5-10, 195 pounds

SCHOOL Arkansas State

POSITION Running back

HOMETOWN Midwest City, Okla.

NOTEWORTHY Rushed for 268 yards and 2 touchdowns on 65 carries in two seasons at Tennessee. ... Set a Tennessee record with 833 kickoff return yards his freshman season. ... Transferred from the Volunteers in January 2011, and sat out last season while working at an insurance firm in Oklahoma City. ... Rated as the No. 2 all-purpose running back prospect by Rivals.com. ... Rushed for 5,802 yards and 68 touchdowns on 760 carries at Carl Albert High School. ... Chose the Volunteers over offers from Auburn, Louisville, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma State and Syracuse.

Sports, Pages 15 on 08/14/2012

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