Onyegbule earns defensive honor

Kansas University defensive lineman Maxwell Onyegbule was named the Big 12’s co-defensive player of the week, the conference announced Monday.

The senior from Arlington, Texas, headlined an impressive performance from the team’s defensive line in Saturday’s 34-7 victory over UTEP, finishing with two sacks, a tackle-for-loss, a pass breakup and six total tackles against the Miners.

He shared the award with Texas defensive tackle Lamarr Houston.

Texas Tech quarterback Taylor Potts was selected as the Big 12 offensive player of the week, meanwhile, and Oklahoma State’s Dez Bryant was named special-teams player of the week.

Lewis still Blue Devils’ starting quarterback

Despite the emergence of red-shirt freshman Sean Renfree, who came off the bench to complete seven of eight passes for 106 yards and two touchdowns in a come-from-behind Duke victory last weekend, Blue Devils coach David Cutcliffe said this week that senior Thaddeus Lewis is still the team’s starting quarterback.

“Thad will be our starting quarterback,” Cutcliffe told GoDuke.com on Monday. “He fought all fall long (through) some issues trying to stay at practice. He missed a lot of practice. He was one of the guys with the flu, and then he came up with an ankle (injury).”

With the exception of Saturday’s performance — he completed just five of 16 passes for 60 yards before being replaced with Duke trailing Army, 10-7 — Lewis hasn’t played terribly this season. He has thrown for 410 yards and three touchdowns without an interception in two games this season, but Cutcliffe said that Renfree most likely will play as a backup against Kansas on Saturday in Lawrence.

“Thad is our quarterback,” he told the Web site. “But we are certainly not going to be afraid to play Sean.”

Duke working through kicking woes

Until the Blue Devils correct their recent kicking struggles, Cutcliffe has decided to pick his starting kicker on a week to week basis.

So far this season, two Blue Devils kickers — Nick Maggio and Will Snyderwine — have combined to go 0-for-3 in field-goal attempts, and Cutcliffe told GoDuke.com that is the reason he’s hesitant to name a permanent starter.

“I would like to do that,” he said of naming a permanent starter. “I don’t like to be wishy-washy. But for obvious reasons, we have been working through this.”