Oklahoma football: Young safeties rocket up depth chart

Fields looks to be a natural leader

The Sooners 2017 recruiting class was special. It really helped turn around the way that Oklahoma football was seen in the recruiting world and began an upward trend that has led to three-straight top 10 classes in Norman.

There are a lot of reasons that class was so great, but you would be remiss to not mention Patrick Fields’ role in keeping that class together.

Fields was the fourth member of the class to commit and once he did, he was in it 100 percent. According to most reports Fields quickly went from being courted to assisting the coaching staff on the recruiting end, contacting other high-level talent and organizing trips to Norman.

Many thought of Fields as the unofficial leader of the 2017 class. Leadership is a quality that comes naturally to some players and having a team leader at free safety, the center field of the defense, is a huge step in the right direction for a secondary that has looked lost and off-assignment far too often over the past few years.

A long way to the finish line

There is still a lot that is going to happen between now and the first game of the year, not to mention what might transpire over the course of the season. We could all be pointing and laughing at this by the the first of January 2020 as an anomaly.

Even if we are, it’s hard to argue the fact that having younger players jump up to grab the brass ring is a good sign. It sets a higher bar that returning starters – and even true freshmen yet to step on campus – will have to try and hurdle if they want to see the field. This is particuarly good news at safety, where the Sooners have been razor-thin over the past few seasons and often had to convert cornerbacks to fill spots on the depth chart.

Competition breeds success and depth matters, especially down the stretch as teams are competing for championships. From the looks of it, the Sooners are getting a little more of both.

That has to be a good thing for folks in Norman.