Today the available players and hence the focus of stories out of spring football were the sophomore safeies. Sophomore Dom DeCicco and redshirt sophomore Elijah Fields.

The goal for Dom DeCicco and Elijah Fields is to play together someday in Pitt’s defensive backfield.

For now, they are waging a friendly battle for the starting strong safety spot. The competition promises to last through the spring and perhaps well into summer.

“We’re like best friends,” says Fields, a redshirt sophomore out of Duquesne High School who missed last season because of a suspension. “No hard feelings.”

“I’m going to come out and give everything I got every day,” says DeCicco, a sophomore out of Thomas Jefferson High School who backed up Eric Thatcher at free safety last season. “He knows that. And I know he will, too. He’s a great athlete. I like to think I’m a great athlete.”

For now DeCicco is the defacto starter since he played last year. Both are athletic, but Fields is more intriguing because he seems to have a higher ceiling. Add in the fact that because he was suspended last season for “violation of team rules,” he has been tantalizing Pitt fans and observers for a longer time.

Plus because he has screwed up, he is a more interesting storyline.

But he didn’t reject, he stood and fielded questions with impressive candor.

When last year’s transgressions were brought up, Fields looked reporters squarely in the eye and said, “It won’t happen again. Trust me.”

Fields didn’t want to get into the events that led to his suspension, and they likely will never be made public. But to the Pitt staff, players and, perhaps most important, Fields, the past isn’t the important part. Instead, the future of the 6-foot-2, 217-pound defensive back from Duquesne is what is paramount.

“I’ve been down most of my life,” Fields said. “I had to learn how to always work my way back up. … I know I am playing for a lot of people. I feel I let my community down, my family down, my teammates down, my coaches down, and it is time to do the right thing.”

The buzz around camp is that Fields is doing the right thing. There also is a feeling that if he wasn’t, he would not have been asked back to the program after the suspension.

“He needs to be accountable, and we [as a coaching staff] need to be able to trust him and his teammates need to be able to trust him, and he now knows that,” Pitt secondary coach Jeff Hafley said. “With not being able to play last year, that sure opened up his eyes. He knows the most important thing is to look at the future and do the right things every single day that will keep him going in a positive direction.”

I hope he truly gets it. Beyond the potential impact he can have on the team, there’s the fact that he has only so many chances to do something with his abilities. If he doesn’t take advantage of the opportunities — education and athletics — he becomes just another “could’ve been.”