Top 5 safeties in college football

3. Paris Ford (Pittsburgh)

Since we’re talking about my kind of guys – Ford is someone I really enjoy watching too. While he is only six foot, 190 pounds, he is a tone-setter for that Pitt defense and plays with great urgency for four quarters.

In his first season as a full-time starter in 2019, he recorded 56 solo tackles (90 total), three interceptions, of which he scored a TD on one of them, nine passes broken up and three forced fumbles. He has a quick trigger against the run and routinely blows up screen passes, while wanting to come in late on every tackle and making sure the ball-carrier lands on his back. As a solo-tackler he takes away ground quickly, but then does a good job of throttling and making a safe stop.

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Ford is mostly used in two-high shells as the boundary safety, but is can absolutely take on single-high and box responsibilities as well. He has really oily quicks and the click-and-close ability to drive on routes, to give with the speed to run stride-for-stride with fast receivers down the seams.

However, he is much more comfortable coming downhill, rather than choosing the proper angles from deep alignment and his feel in coverage at the back-end is still improving.

4. Richie Grant (UCF)

When you read what the UCF coaches say about Grant in terms of his work ethic and athletic skill-set, they are blown away by this guy. His numbers in coverage last season were crazy, as he brought in six interceptions and broke up four more passes, while allowing just 21 catches, with none of them going for more than 25 yards, which was part of making him a first-team All-AAC selection.

However, while he does line up in on the wide side in split-safety looks, they put him as the +1 in the box a lot and bring him off the edge quite a bit. I really like the way he races up against the run and the great pursuit he shows.

Grant has no issues picking up receivers in two-deep coverage that were carried up to him and he excels at disrupting the catch-point. He also has plenty of experience covering slot receiver one-on-one, with rapid footwork and the ability to reach around targets.

While I enjoy his work down low, when he is left as the last defender, you see those dynamic athletes shake him at times and he is little too aggressive against play-fakes, which puts him in tough spots.

5. Kolby Harvell-Peel (Oklahoma State)

Man, Harvell-Peel fills out that six foot, 210-pound frame. To me he has been the biggest key for this Oklahoma State defense, which was one of the top scoring units in the country until the Oklahoma game, in which he had a few sequences himself.

The numbers he put up in 2019 are pretty crazy, at 71 total tackles, five INTs, 13 more passes broken up, a couple of fumbles forced and recovered each.

Harvell-Peel almost always plays boundary safety, but has plenty of experience rolling to the deep middle of the field. However, the function I like him most at in coverage is as a robber, where I really like the awareness for targets around him and how he takes away throwing windows. The Cowboys coaches bring him down into the box, where he does not shy away from running into pulling guards or filling gaps as run-defender.

He is an excellent face-mask tackler, who brings his hips through on contact. With that being said, there is a little stiffness in his hips as well not having that free safety top-end speed, which leads to him makes him very conservative in MOF duty, making routes behind the second level highly effective against him.

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