James Franklin did an incredible job retaining talent in Happy Valley for another run at the national championship in 2025, but one of the positions that the Nittany Lions suffered the biggest losses at this offseason was safety. Kevin Winston Jr. and Jaylen Reed both left for the NFL, leaving Zakee Wheatley as the lone returning starter and plenty of question marks next to him.
Well, apparently, those questions have been answered, and surprisingly, with a bit of a fall camp roster battle upset as Franklin announced in his first weekly press conference of the season that Antoine Belgrave-Shorter is slated to start next to Wheatley in Week 1.
Recruited as a cornerback, the 2024 three-star must have impressed in fall camp to beat out Dejuan Lane and King Mack, two players that Franklin and the Penn State program have invested more in.
Antoione Belgrave-Shorter slated to start at safety next to Zakee Wheatley
Dejuan Lane was one of two Nittany Lions in the 2024 recruiting class to get the green light to burn their redshirts before the season began, and the four-star recruit played 155 snaps across 12 games last season. Then, as insurance against Lane’s development, Franklin dipped into the transfer portal to facilitate the return of 2023 four-star King Mack, who left for one season at Alabama after beginning his career in Happy Valley.
Lane and Mack were certainly the favorites to win those jobs, and Franklin’s actions regarding those two players indicated that he believed in them at least as major contributors, if not starters, on this 2025 roster. Yet, it’s Belgrave-Shorter who won out with an impressive fall camp. Lane and Mack are both expected to play, but will start the season behind the redshirt freshman former cornerback.
“Right now, Belgrave-Shorter is the starter across from Zakee,” Franklin told the media on Monday. “But those other two safeties we plan on playing a lot. We feel like we got four safeties we can win with. Belgrave is probably a guy that there wasn't a lot of conversations going on outside of the Lasch Building, but [he] led us in interceptions and turnovers this training camp. [He's] been very, very consistent about how he's gone about his business, so he has earned that spot.”
That’s a ringing endorsement from the head coach, and a sign that Penn State’s defense could take the ball away quite a bit in 2025. Wheatley ended last season, his redshirt junior year, on a turnover tear through the College Football Playoff, coming up with interceptions against both Boise State and Notre Dame.
Snap allocation will be worth monitoring at safety throughout the first three weeks of the season as Penn State navigates something of a preseason slate against Nevada, FIU, and Villanova, before hosting Oregon in the White Out on September 27.