This is the seventh in a series of articles previewing the 2015 football season at Missouri S&T.  The daily stories will feature one position, or a set of positions, each weekday through August 6.  The stories will be available at 11 a.m., each day.

Today's story features the Miner secondary.

ROLLA, Mo. -- One of the big keys for Missouri S&T heading into the 2015 season is going to be sorting out roles in the secondary, where the Miners were hit with significant graduation losses which included All-America cornerback Will Brown (Hazelwood, Mo./Hazelwood West).

"Going through spring practice was a challenge for us because we had only three cornerbacks available for the entire 15 practices," Fenwick said.  "One big question for us going into the year in the secondary is how are the transfers and younger players who haven't played a whole lot going to factor in and we won't know until they get out there.  We feel like we have good talent – but there's no substitute for experience."

The three returners with experience at cornerback are led by Khalan King (St. Peters, Mo./Fort Zumwalt East) who had 32 tackles a season ago. The other returners at corner are Shaun Williams (St. Louis, Mo./DeSmet Jesuit), who was in on eight stops last fall and Cardell Miller (Kansas City, Mo./Archbishop O'Hara), who has not seen playing time in his two seasons at S&T.

A trio of transfers from the junior college ranks in California, Isaiah Hardy (San Jose, Calif./Sobrato), from DeAnza College, Rilwan Adedeji (Houston, Texas/George Bush), who played last season at Contra Costa College and Jeremi Ross (Valencia, Calif./Hollywood) from Los Angeles Valley College will join the competition for starting roles at cornerback.   Returning squadmember Jeff Plake could also work his way into the rotation at the cornerback position along with incoming freshman Isaac Williams (St. Louis, Mo./DeSmet Jesuit), who played last season at DeSmet High School.

Meanwhile at safety, the Miners have one returning player back in Albert Yemitan (Houston, Texas/Western Illinois Univ.), a veteran who has seen time at corner and safety throughout his career and had 12 tackles last season.

Leshawn Lampkins (Vallejo, Calif./Vallejo), who also played at Contra Costa with Adedeji, will be in the mix at safety along with redshirt freshman Hayden Mills (Little Rock, Ark./Central).  Returner Will Rogers (Springfield, Mo./Glendale) and incoming freshmen Ryan Kirkendall (Silsbee, Texas/Silsbee), John McClure (Fenton, Mo./Rockwood Summit), Mickey Sarner (Murrieta, Calif./Murrieta Valley) and Bowen Brooks (Canutillo, Texas/Canutillo) are also expected to compete for playing time at safety.

"The biggest factor with our defense in general is to put the pieces to the puzzle together," Fenwick said.  "We have to figure out where guys can play and what our best talent is to get our best players on the field.  We're going to go through some inexperience, so the big question is what will they look like when the lights come on and they're going against another opponent."

2015 MISSOURI S&T FOOTBALL PREVIEW SERIES
July 27 – Quarterbacks
July 28 – Running Backs
July 29 – Wide Receivers/Tight Ends
July 30 – Offensive Line
July 31 – GLVC Media Day/Pre-Season Poll
August 3 – Defensive Line
August 4 – Linebackers
August 5 – Defensive Backs
August 6 – Special Teams