For the majority of those starting for the Sooners football team, their stories on how they got to Norman go something like this: They excelled as a high school standout and accumulated significant interest from several colleges, eventually signing a letter of intent and accepting a scholarship to play football for Oklahoma.

But for those like junior Trent Ratterree and senior Brian Lepak, the journey to making the team went a little bit differently: They walked on.

Because football teams at the college level have a limited number of scholarships they are allowed to give out per rules set by the NCAA, football hopefuls are allowed to try out and attempt to join the football team without a scholarship.

Last season, Ratterree and Lepak received significant playing time due to the injury plague that struck last year’s team. Those same walk-ons are looking at significant playing time and perhaps even starting roles this season.

“I kind of had a unique situation where I came in and I had talked with the coaches and everything,” Ratterree said. “I didn’t just show up on their doorstep unknown about. They had seen me play on tape and they told me that they thought I’d have a chance to play.”

That was three years ago. Now entering his fourth year as a redshirt junior, the 6-foot-3, 246-pounder is listed as the starting tight end on the latest two-deep depth chart released Monday.

Ratterree saw his chance to play last season when injuries to a once-deep tight end position and the offensive line gave him a chance to show what he had.

“Honestly, it was pretty nuts,” he said. “Coming into the season I was expecting to play a little bit, just some time here and there, but coming into the season Brody (Eldridge) gets moved and Jermaine (Gresham) gets hurt the Tuesday or Wednesday before we played BYU. The next thing I know I’m starting and we’re going into that big stadium down there.”

Calling the Dallas Cowboys’ home stadium “big” is an understatement. “Jerryworld,” as it is often referred to as after owner Jerry Jones, is one of the nicest and most expensive stadiums in the country.

Not to mention the game Ratterree started was the maiden voyage of the sparking new stadium, packed with 110,000 fans.

“I was really nervous actually because I wasn’t mentally prepared at all and I think that showed in the way I played,” Ratterree said. “I had to push the thoughts aside that I’m some skinny country boy from Weatherford walk-on. I had to start saying, ‘I belong on this team and belong on this field.’ I just had to go out there and show what I’ve got.”

Ratterree had been looked at by a few Division I colleges while in high school but did not receive any definite offers. His decision was between walking on at OU or accepting a scholarship at a Division II college.

Family and friends, especially his parents and brother, told him he could play as a Sooner. Despite their unfailing loyalty, Ratterree was leaning towards the Division II offer until a day when he was helping a local pastor move some things out of a truck.

“He looked at me and asked if I knew what I was going to do,” Ratterree recalled. “I told him I thought I was just going to take the scholarship to the D-II school and help my parents out. He looked at me with disbelief and he said ‘No, you belong at OU.’

“That kind of turned me, because he had been around college football as a chaplain and stuff, and after he said that it turned me and I went to OU.”

Lepak began his career in a different manner at Colorado State in the Mountain West Conference. After a season there, his decision to come to OU, he said, was clear as day.

“I was really unhappy at Colorado State and my dream was to be a Sooner,” Lepak said. “I just decided one day that I couldn’t deny myself that anymore and it didn’t matter what the cost was going to be. I needed to go pursue it.”

Like Ratterree, the 6-foot-4, 299-pound guard had those who supported him throughout his life. But there were also those who thought differently.

“I was leaving a scholarship at one of the Mountain West Conference schools to come walk on here,” he said. “People thought I was being an idiot and asking me why I would ever do that. You just have to block out the naysayers and do what I knew deep down in my heart was the right thing to do—to chase after my dream like I wanted to.”

Ratterree acknowledged there’s a particular stereotype for walk-ons.

“You see movies like Rudy and all those. You see everything where he’s getting trashed and beat up and everything because he goes too hard, then he finally gets to suit up and plays one play and it’s awesome,” Ratterree said jokingly during a phone interview.

Lepak also said being a walk-on can carry with it a negative connotation.

“I think the stereotype of when somebody says they’re going to be a walk-on is that they’re just like Geek Squad,” Lepak said. “That’s not true. You get treated just like everybody else does, you get the same equipment and you’re going to be practicing with everybody else.”

But the truth of the matter is that walk-ons provide the team with many well-needed assets. Depth is added to different positions on the field and the scout team is made stronger.

“If we didn’t have the numbers to practice and didn’t have the guys that took it seriously and learned what they needed to do down on the scout field, we wouldn’t be prepared to win,” Lepak said.

For Ratterree, being a walk-on didn’t make him feel inferior.

“I never once felt like a walk-on,” he said. “The coaches here at OU have been wonderful and I really respect them for sticking by what they told me they were going to do.”

Since they became part of the team, both Ratterree and Lepak have enjoyed their time and referred to their decision to come to OU as “the best decision I ever made.” Both noted how their teammates, coaches and fans have accepted them with wide-open arms.

Perhaps the reason Sooner Nation feels so connected to the two walk-ons is because they represent a part of every OU fan from the attending student to the retired alum to the 7-year-old boy that will be sitting in the stands Sept. 4.

“It’s definitely something, it’s a dream come true for me,” Ratterree said. “I grew up and I’ve been in this stadium watching games since I was a fourth or fifth grader and I was watching them on TV all those years I wasn’t able to come to the games.

“It’s crazy to be on the other end of that and coming out of the tunnel instead of staring into it,” he said.