Sam Okuayinonu spent the 2023 NFL regular season out of a job and in a dark place.
After he was released by the Titans in late August, the unemployed defensive end spent more than four months training back home in Lowell, Mass., living with his mom and staying in shape for an opportunity he slowly began to believe would never come.
By early January, Okuayinonu had accepted that, at 25, he was probably an ex-NFL player, among countless on the league’s fringes who silently fade away, and he started his post-football life. He landed a job with the Lowell school district, creating learning programs for special-needs students, and his first day involved orientation and, he now insists, divine intervention.
How else to explain what happened when he left work, walked to the parking lot, got in his car and received a call. It was his agent: The San Francisco 49ers wanted to bring him in for a workout.
“I was like, ‘This has to be God,’” said Okuayinonu (pronounced oh-kwu-AHN-new). “Just being home for 17 weeks and not doing nothing and then getting a call the first day you finally decided to get a job? The first day? Even now, just sitting back and thinking about it’s like, ‘Whoa, there is no way that all this happened in that timing.’”
What has happened since is worthy of yet another whoa. But that’s not a surprise for anyone familiar with Okuayinonu’s story. It’s an improbable journey that involves two continents, four colleges and a passion for a sport he initially detested when he first played as a junior in high school, a few years after coming to America from Liberia with his mom when he was 12.
Ten months after Okuayinonu’s workout led to a spot on the practice squad, the 49ers defensive end’s surprising season is a reason the 49ers didn’t deal for a pass rusher at the trade deadline Tuesday. The 2022 undrafted free agent who entered the year with puny career totals (0.5 sacks, 105 snaps), enters Sunday’s visit to Tampa Bay as the team’s top edge rusher off the bench: Okuayinonu, 6-foot-1 and 269 pounds, is tied for third on the team with three sacks and ranks fourth with six quarterback hits.
Okuayinonu’s sack total matches that of decorated pass rusher Leonard Floyd, who signed a two-year, $20 million deal in March and has played 152 more snaps in 2024.
“I had no idea who he was in training camp,” Floyd said. “But I saw kind of quickly that he was a good player. And then he got his opportunity during the season and he’s seized the moment and isn’t turning back.”
Okuayinonu grew up in Monrovia, Liberia, passionate about soccer, and he continued playing the sport his first two years in high school. As a junior, however, he was 6-foot-1 and 230 pounds and was persuaded to switch to the unfamiliar sport suited for size. But it didn’t suit him: Okuayinonu quit midway through the season.
“I didn’t understand it,” Okuayinonu said. “I didn’t like the physicality. I didn’t like the fact that I had to stay so long after school. And in Massachusetts it gets cold in the winter. I was like, ‘Golly, I really do not like this.’”
Okuayinonu had a cousin who implored him to try again his senior season. And the teenager who was still adapting to American culture agreed to do so because football players had status and he wanted to be “one of the cool guys.” Okuayinonu improved and earned a starting role, but he didn’t even merit all-conference consideration because his obvious assets — size, strength and athleticism — were offset by his lack of instincts.
His head coach, John Florence, blamed himself this week for not recognizing Okuayinonu’s vast potential. At the time, however, Okuayinonu’s poor grades — he admits he was an indifferent high school student — were among the reasons it was hard for Florence to pitch him to colleges.
“He didn’t have a ton of film,” Florence said. “His grades weren’t all that good. So from that perspective it was hard for me to put myself out there and say, ‘You guys should take a shot on this kid,’ when there wasn’t any data to back that up.”
After high school, Okuayinonu attended Middlesex Community College in nearby Bedford. And a funny thing happened during his time at the school that didn’t have sports: He found that he missed playing the sport he once hated.
After his first semester, Okuayinonu began sending out his high school highlight tape — “It wasn’t all that much, honestly,” he said — to junior colleges across the country. He received little interest, but there was a nibble from Coahoma Community College in Clarksdale, Miss., a moribund program with a 1-26 record in its previous three seasons.
Coahoma could offer scholarships to 10 out-of-state players and those from out of state who weren’t on scholarship weren’t eligible to play in their first season. Okuayinonu wasn’t offered a scholarship, but he trekked to Mississippi because he viewed it as a chance to learn and develop. And, of course, there was this: He had no better options.
After observing during the 2017 season, Okuayinonu practiced in the spring and he was confident he had performed well enough to earn a scholarship for the following year. But the coaching staff wasn’t convinced.
“At the end of the spring, I asked them if they were going to put me on scholarship and they didn’t really give me a clear answer,” Okuayinonu said. “So I took my film from spring practice and sent it all over the country.”
This time, Okuayinonu found a fan: Tom Inforzato, the head coach at Mesabi Range College, a junior college with an enrollment of less than 1,000 in Virginia, Minn., located about 100 miles from the Canadian border.
“It was just practice film, but Sam looked different than a typical kid at our level,” Inforzato said. “I mean, he’s built like a brick s—house. He had quick-twitch off the line. He was raw, but I liked him right away and immediately called him. I liked his attitude. His character. I was excited.”
So was Okuayinonu. But his single mom, Clara D. Attia, who had raised him after divorcing his father when Sam was young, was less enthused about paying high out-of-state costs for another far-flung school. She had worked multiple jobs to pay for his year at Coahoma.
“I had to beg her to go to Minnesota and she was like, ‘This is your last chance,’” Okuayinonu said. “That’s when I started focusing on school because I couldn’t blow this opportunity. With football, my mindset was complete dominance. I knew I couldn’t be mediocre. And after the first couple games, I was like, ‘Hey, man, you can really make a living doing this thing.’”
In his second full season of football at any level, Okuayinonu was a first-team All-American who had 17.5 sacks, tying for most in the nation, and was named the Minnesota College Athletic Conference Defensive Player of the Year. He received scholarship offers from a host of schools, including Oregon, Syracuse, Maryland and Memphis.
“He was a gift and we got lucky,” Inforzato said. “And whoever let him go from Coahoma, they’ve got to be kicking themselves. That was a really, really bad mistake.”
Okuayinonu spent three seasons at Maryland, earning third-team All-Big Ten honors in 2021, but he was bypassed in the 2022 NFL draft and signed with the Titans as a free agent. After playing six games as a rookie, he was waived before his second season, which led to the extended unemployment that made him question his ability.
“It was like, ‘I know I’m not this bad,’” Okuayinonu said, laughing. “Someone is going to call my phone. But it just didn’t happen. I was so surprised. I kept asking, ‘Am I this bad? I know I’m not this bad at football.’ That was a very tough, dark time.”
Now that he’s back in the NFL, Okuayinonu is determined to stay. Floyd noted the “strain” and “effort” that Okuayinonu plays with, and head coach Kyle Shanahan referenced Okuayinonu’s “violence,” which has even shown up in practice. Okuayinonu began this season on the practice squad and made it his mission to make the starters he faced in practice “hate” him due to his relentlessness.
“I got Kyle mad a few times, yelling at me to stay away from the quarterback,” Okuayinonu said. “I just want to be a wrecking ball.”
Off the field, however, Okuayinonu is soft-spoken, with a bellowing laugh and a heart for others. He has returned to Mesabi Range to help with a summer camp and recently sent the team a video message before it played in the state finals. Last week, he went back home and spoke to the Lowell High School football team during the 49ers’ bye.
Okuayinonu shared his improbable story, a journey that has included two continents, four colleges and a passion for a career that he cherishes even more after it appeared it was over.
“That’s why I’m such a happy person,” Okuayinonu said. “None of it has been easy, and I reflect on it a lot. And that’s why I give everything when I’m out there.”