There have been a few examples in recent years of Oklahoma winning defensive recruiting battles that the Sooners simply just wouldn’t have.

Some that panned out in huge positive ways like Ronnie Perkins and Kenneth Murray. But for OU to really make that next leap, it had to be from the guys in the thick of the trenches, the interior defensive line.

OU felt confident it had found that guy when Perrion Winfrey signed for OU for the 2020 class out of junior college, and it sure appears as though he’s putting it all together.

Winfrey attended Iowa Western Community College, located in Council Bluffs, Iowa. That’s just over 50 miles away from Lincoln, Neb., and the Cornhuskers absolutely made their run at him time and time again.

Winfrey even made an official visit to Lincoln in spring 2019, but in a sign of one program going this way and the other going that way, there was never a doubt for Winfrey.

Or at least he knew where he wasn’t going to attend.

“I was never going to Nebraska,” Winfrey said. “It’s a great organization for sure, but honestly that’s just — great players, great coaches — but it just wasn’t the fit for me, honestly. They made a strong push until I told them to stop pushing, but it was a great experience overall and I enjoyed every bit of it.”

Nebraska just is no longer the it school for elite recruits to attend. OU has been for a while offensively, and the Sooners have worked their butts off to change the perception the results when it comes to the defense.

There was always something different to the OU offer for Winfrey. Even though other mega-schools came into the picture like Alabama, he never gave anybody a reason to second-guess his decision.

When he made the call to OU in June 2019, everybody anticipated this long, drawn out timeline to try to keep him. Eh, never happened.

“It was a fun recruitment. He's a fun guy, you know, energetic,” head coach Lincoln Riley said. “He had a great family. We certainly recruited him, but he was pretty locked in on OU pretty quick. I really felt like he was going to come to OU early in the recruitment, and sometimes you get a feel for a guy.

“He makes you feel good about your chances. He also makes 10 other schools feel good about their chances, too. And he wasn't. He wasn't that guy. He was loyal the whole way through when he said he was coming, he was done. We had great visits with him.

“I remember I went up and saw him, I guess it would have been maybe in December. Just met him up there in the library of the school, and everybody's gone for Christmas break. I think we were the only two people on the entire campus, and it was colder than hell. But yea, that school’s obviously been good to us.”

He came in with massive expectations, but then the entire 2020 class was thrown the ultimate curveball with COVID-19 canceling things, disrupting all flow heading into last season.

There were times when Winfrey was on the verge of becoming that dominant force in the middle, but there was always just a little something missing.

Winfrey would make the first part of the play and get into the backfield, but he struggled to finish it off and make the sack or tackle for loss.

It was a point of emphasis heading into 2021.

“He needed to be more productive. He couldn’t be simply content with being disruptive. He needed to get in the backfield and actually make plays,” defensive coordinator Alex Grinch said. “So of the issues from last year with not being able to get guys on the ground was a matter of being too high.

“When you approach ball carriers in the backfield, those things happen so fast. Often for those interior guys, once you’re in the backfield, that back is right on you and you have to fire at the guy and go low and secure the guy quickly. The same goes for a quarterback.”

Winfrey admits to a changed mindset heading into this season. Despite not having a breakout season in 2020, he had enough tape to think about testing the waters for the NFL Draft.

He said in the spring, though, he had a lot of unfinished business. Most of that is on the field, but now it’s easy to see the mental part of his transition as well.

Defensive line coach Calvin Thibodeaux described Winfrey as a ‘mood-changer’ earlier this summer in saying when someone doesn’t speak too much like Winfrey, his words resonate in a strong way when he does get vocal.

“If it wasn't something that was helping me become a better football player, then I was going to detach it from my life,” Winfrey said. “And I feel like that helped me and my teammates trust me more, knowing that I was doing everything right on the field and doing everything right off the field. So I feel like once I realized that everything off the field was clean, I feel like that I could become the leader that they needed me to be

“And I just feel like me, my voice and who I am as a person is just like, I don't even need a ‘C’ on my jersey to be a captain. I guess you could say, I just feel like my presence is enough and just me showing people like, the ropes and like how to do things. I just felt like that I wanted to become a leader this year, so that I just started to do things that I needed to do.”

Winfrey was a bit banged up, Riley said, in OU’s win vs. Tulane. But in only 19 snaps vs. Western Carolina, that’s the Winfrey everybody is hoping to see, finishing with 1.5 sacks.

He’s healthy physically, focused mentally, and now the best is yet to come for the highly touted recruit who is absolutely starting to tap into his potential.