With Wisconsin's roster all but finalized and the season right around the corner, the Badgers have their sights set on fall camp. Once again, the team will travel to UW-Platteville for the first portion of practice up until Aug. 11.

As the dog days of summer heat up, so will position battles and the intense competition for snaps once the season rolls around. Up until fall camp, BadgerBlitz.com will preview each position on the roster. We'll continue with the safeties, a room under new direction with new position coach Alex Grinch.

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Wisconsin saw just one safety who took snaps last season depart, the seldom-utilized Travian Blaylock. He played just 117 snaps, according to Pro Football Focus, and the Badgers are set to run it back with the top players in their safety room.

True freshman Raphael Dunn and walk-on Mason Lane are the only additions Wisconsin made to its safety room this offseason, and for good reason. The Badgers return their top four most-utilized safeties, led by All-Big Ten superstar Hunter Wohler. Couple that with emerging youth (Austin Brown, Braedyn Moore) and experienced veterans (Preston Zachman, Kamo'i Latu), this is a rock-solid position group for the first-year safety coach Grinch.

Last season, in a rather shocking turn of events, the then-little-known safety Zachman ultimately became Wisconsin's second-most utilized player at the position. He took 100 more snaps than the next closest, Brown.

Zachman isn't a physically dominating safety, but he wins with his mind and football IQ. He's often in the right place at the right time, and the staff eventually preferred his football IQ over some of the other traits in the safety room.

“I view safety as the quarterback of the defense. You’re kinda running the show in the back end, you see the bigger picture,” Zachman told BadgerBlitz.com last year. “I pride myself on being the smartest player out on the field, being knowledgeable of not only our defense, but then what the offense is doing. What the QB’s thinking, what he’s doing with his eyes. If he’s trying to fool me, if he’s staring someone down.”

The cerebral Zachman returns, and should be in line for plenty of snaps once again this fall. But he figures to get supplanted as the No. 2 safety — the question is, who will replace him?

The logical answer is the junior Brown. He registered the most playing time of his career last season and took a big step forward in his development by starting at the nickel spot against LSU in the ReliaQuest Bowl. All told, he compiled 36 tackles, two PBUs, one tackle-for-loss and one sack.

A sleeper could be Moore. It seems unlikely at this point that he would surpass Brown on the depth chart barring injury, but he proved that he's a youngster on the rise this spring. He played all over the formation and worked closely with the coaches all camp. He displayed a level of physicality that appears to be exactly what Wisconsin's staff is looking for.

"He wants to put pads on people. We use that term run-and-hit factor," Grinch said this spring. "The willingness to do it vs. the want to do it. There's a big difference between the two, and he wants to put pads on people. He's one of those young guys that got a lot of reps this spring. By and large, I would say not having the same meeting over and over again with Braedyn. Sometimes with young guys, you tell them again, tell them again, so I give him a lot of credit in that way. But I've been impressed with him so far...fall camp is gonna be huge for him. Certainly a good young prospect."

Latu returns, but his play-style seemed to clash with with the staff wants as he's more of a downhill, physical player with less sideline-to-sideline speed and versatility. His 21.4 percent missed tackle rate from last season doesn't help his case either.

Behind Wohler, this could certainly be a safety room by committee once again. This feels like Brown's year to emerge as a full-time starter, but if last year taught us anything, expect the unexpected.

1. Can the safety room reach full strength by the opener? Grinch was dealt a tough hand for a first-year position coach trying to get acclimated with his room this spring, as Wisconsin's safeties were throughly banged up. Both Zachman and Latu were out for the majority of the spring, as was walk-on Owen Arnett.

2. Young players on the rise. It'll be entertaining to continue to track the development of Brown, Moore, and the rest of Wisconsin's underclassmen at safety. Dunn will partake in his first practices this fall, although his reps will likely be few and far between. Redshirt freshman Justin Taylor will look to continue to get more involved as well.

It's hard to determine just who the "backups" are exactly at safety. We know who isn't a backup: Wohler, likely Brown, and sprinkle in some Zachman. But after that, how Wisconsin organizes its depth or deploys its safeties is really anyone's guess.

The players slightly deeper in this room to know are Moore, Taylor and Dunn. We mentioned Moore, and he seems to have fast-tracked his development this offseason. He may still be a year away from contributing regularly, but he's an exciting prospect for the future in Madison. Taylor got the most practice reps he's seen this spring, but he's also likely at least a year away from seeing the field in any kind of regular capacity. Dunn, a three-star athlete from New Jersey, projects to the "dollar" position in Mike Tressel's defense.

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