Oklahoma football: Numbers to know, Brendan Radley-Hiles, No. 44

No player in the Oklahoma football recruiting class of 2018 came into the program with higher expectations that West Coast native Brendan Radley-Hiles.

A five-star recruit, per Rivals, and the highest rated player in OU’s 2018 class, Radley-Hiles was recruited as a cornerback, but he saw the majority of action a year ago at nickelback (or as a fifth defensive back), which is where he will be used extensively this season as a result of the season-ending training camp injury to junior Tre Norward.

Radley-Hiles was heavily recruited and ended up choosing the Sooners over such major programs as Alabama, Clemson, Florida State, Nebraska and USC. So Oklahoma wasn’t the only program that saw a lot of potential in the talented defensive back.

The player they call “Bookie” was a dominant defensive force at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, where he completed his high school career. With the Sooners in deep need for more quality play in the secondary, coupled with the talent level and national notoriety associated with Radley-Hiles, it is easy to understand why expectations were so high upon landing the highly touted high school star.

Oklahoma Sooners Football

Although Radley-Hiles got off to a fairly strong start in a Sooner uniform, recording 19 tackles in his first four games, he was playing in an Oklahoma defense that, to put it frankly, was not very good and with individual expectations that were too much for the young freshman to handle too early and eventually took their toll.

Bookie, who wears jersey number 44 (the same number worn by former Sooner All-American linebacker Brian Bosworth in the 1980s), suffered an injury in OU’s eighth game last season, which slowed him down for a game or two, but the truth was his production had also begun to decline noticeably as the season progressed.

Sooner coaches probably weren’t as concerned with the situation surrounding Radley-Hiles as the fans were, recognizing that he was just one-year removed from playing high school football and because of the learning curve and natural adjustment required at the Division I college level.

The No. 2 cornerback and No. 17 player overall in the 2018 class nationally, Radley-Hiles still has the opportunity to live up to the early expectations everyone had for him. His skills and attributes are an excellent fit for the adjustments that defensive coordinator Alex Grinch is installing in the Sooners’ defensive plan.

We should shortly know if Radley-Hiles’ up-and-down freshman season was merely an aberration or a troubling pattern