State Of The Squad By Position - Safeties

[Guest GrayEagleOne]

The roster:

Germaine Dawson 6-1 213 SR Played in 11 games last year

Kartey Agbotah 6-2 190 JR Played in 11 games last year

Kylee Hill 5-10 190 JR JC Transfer

Justin Edwards 6-1 175 JR JC Transfer

Zach Babb 6-2 192 JR

Greg Garden 5-11 190 SO Transfer from Navy

Darrien Williams 5-11 183 FR

John Shorter 5-11 190 FR

Jeremy Phillips 6-4 195 FR

Donte Neal 5-11 195 SO* Transfer from Missouri

Initially, this looked like the real problem position. We lost one of the best safeties in our history in Aaron Weathers. We had only one starter, a walkon, and a transfer who sat out last season but had not played since high school due to injury. The starter, Agbotah, did seem to improve as the season wore on to become the third leading tackler among the returnees. Zach Babb, the walkon, had good blood lines as the son of former NT linebacking great Frank Babb from the Hayden Fry era. But he was injured and did not play in a single game. Great things were expected (and still are) from Greg Garden. Then along came some outstanding recruits. Justin Edwards was an all-area player at Garland Naaman Forest who originally signed at Iowa. He played in 7 games as a true freshman then transferred to Eastern Arizona JC where last year he had a whopping 120 tackles. He looks like a sure bet to be one of the starters at safety. The second spot looks to be a battle between the incumbent Agbotah and NEO transfer Kylee Hill who will be at spring drills. The only senior is Germaine Dawson, formerly a linebacker, who now plays on special teams. Some label Darrien Williams as can't miss. He played little defense last year as he was quarterbacking Vernon to the playoffs. Another recruit of whom much is expected is John Shorter, who is also a heralded return man. Jeremy Phillips was recruited as a strong safety but I look at him as following his brother's footsteps. His brother Jason also was the quarterback at Waller his senior year. He signed with TCU, put on a little weight and became an all-MWC linebacker. I really think that Jeremy settles at linebacker. I added the name of Donte Neal who is walking on this spring. He appears the most likely to make the squad. He signed with Missour but sat out last season as a redshirt. Due to the transfer rule, I believe that he will also have to sit out this coming season and have three years of eligibility beginning in 2009.

For this year I believe that Edwards, Agbotah, Garden, Kylee Hill, Williams and Shorter are the 3-deep safeties but who winds up in what order is really hard to predict.

[H-towngreen]

This was a postion that I was really worried about at the end of the season, but it now seems as though we are set for years to come.

[NTPhiKap99]

This was a postion that I was really worried about at the end of the season, but it now seems as though we are set for years to come.

They're almost all unproven but we defiantly addressed the weakness I think your right we should be pretty solid a cross the whole secondary for a while now.