Penn State football safety Lamont Wade announces decision to enter NFL draft
Penn State football has lost one of its starting safeties to the 2021 NFL Draft.
Senior Lamont Wade announced his decision to enter the draft Thursday evening from his personal Twitter account.
Wade started 20 games for the Nittany Lions in his career, including seven in 2020 when he was named a team captain. In his final year he tallied 37 total tackles, two fumble recoveries and an interception. He closed out his time at Penn State with a 100-yard kick return touchdown in the team’s season finale against Illinois.
The safety was named All-Big Ten honorable mention by the coaches and media as a junior after 67 tackles, including 4.5 for loss, two sacks, five passes defended and three forced fumbles in 13 games. He showed his versatility in his time at Penn State, starting at safety while also dropping to the star position — Penn State’s terminology for the fifth defensive back who plays the slot.
Wade arrived on campus as a high four-star cornerback and one of the top 50 players in the country, according to the 247Sports Composite player rankings in 2017. As a recruit, he chose the Nittany Lions over Tennessee, UCLA and West Virginia, among other schools.
His departure comes after the NCAA passed a rule that the 2020 season will not count toward student-athletes’ eligibility clock. That allows seniors — like Wade — to play one more year of college football and would have let him return for another season.
Penn State will be relatively thin at safety with his exit after Trent Gordon transferred to Arkansas prior to the end of the season.
The Nittany Lions will have senior starter Jaquan Brisker back next season thanks to that NCAA rule, but will need to fill Wade’s spot. Redshirt junior Jonathan Sutherland could take the vacant spot, but he will have competition from junior Ji’Ayir Brown, redshirt freshman Tyler Rudolph, freshman Enzo Jennings and incoming freshman safety Jaylen Reed — who could see the field early in his Penn State career.
