Roster Rundown: No. 34 Jalen Geiger

Time flies, and before long Kentucky's experienced secondary will give way to the next batch of young talents in Lexington.

Jalen Geiger, No. 34, is part of that coming wave of players. He's next up in Cats Illustrated's Roster Rundown as we preview the 2020 season.

Background: Rivals.com ranked Geiger the No. 9 prospect in the state of South Carolina when he was a high school senior at Spring Valley in Columbia. North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina were among the other schools that featured most prominently in his recruitment.

He came from a family with athletic credentials as his older brother played for Bowling Green roughly a decade ago.

While Geiger was recruited to Kentucky as a cornerback earlier this year he was moved to safety.

Geiger was named to the SEC's first-year academic honor roll this summer so he has acclimated himself very well to the student-athlete experience in a year with the Wildcats.

2020 Outlook: This spring Steve Clinkscale told Cats Illustrated that he was very optimistic about Geiger's future in mentioning his position change to safety.

It seems that Geiger is working primarily at free safety where Yusuf Corker came on strong last year. Whenever it is Geiger's turn at the position he will benefit from his time as an understudy to some talented and experienced players in the secondary and his corner-level coverage skills should serve him very well deeper in the defensive backfield.

At 6'1 and 195 pounds Geiger has the measurables and the skill to thrive there. Couple that with an innate physicality to come downhill and make tough tackles and there's plenty of reason for optimism. He'll need to be ready this year and could challenge for a starting role next.