McLaurin Shows Promise at Free Safety

The JUCO transplant is proving his worth in the defensive backfield.

Redshirt sophomore safety Hershey McLaurin started his football career as a quarterback. The Friendship, MS native also played basketball for Collins High School before a knee injury put serious college recruitment on the back burner. He landed, instead, at Jones County Junior College in Ellisville, MS.

McLaurin switched to the other side of the ball at JCJC and rapidly became a stand-out JUCO safety. He was named Mississippi Association of Community Colleges Conference's Defensive Player of the Week after playing all five games in 2020's shortened season. He registered 21 tackles and a TFL that season.

Last year, he bulked his numbers up, nabbing 36 tackles and five interceptions; those interceptions ranked him No. 4 nationally and helped bolster a defense that led the nation with 22 interceptions.

Following that season, McLaurin made the jump to Division I football, and he's fit right in.

He enrolled at WVU in January 2022 and came into spring ball and fall camp ready to perform.

Hershey McLaurin at Fall Camp 2022 / Julia Mellett - Sports Illustrated: FanNation - Mountaineers Now

"Hershey's got to clean some things up," safeties coach Dontae Wright said. "If you could draw [a safety], that's what you want. That's the way they look. We sit here and coach Koonz is salivating at the mouth because he wants him to come play backer one day. I'm saying, 'No. He's a safety,' because he runs so well and he's got pterodactyl arms. He's so long that he can get beat and still have the opportunity to make a play on the ball because of his length."

"I'm very comfortable with Hershey, and he's going to continue to get better because the more football and the more reps he plays... I'm still not sure how we got him because of his physical talents," Wright said. "He's going to be a really good football player for us."

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