Penn State Football: Once Again, Options Aplenty in Running Back Room

The best thing you can say about Penn State’s running back room is that almost any of them could turn out to be the Nittany Lions’ leading rusher in 2021.

There is Keyvone Lee who barreled his way to that honor in 2020 behind 89 carries for a respectable 4.9 yards per touch.

You could point out Noah Cain, returning from an injury but the one-time favorite to become Penn State’s next marquee running back. How he looks after a year away from the game remains to be seen, but his first once-upon-a-time impressions were memorable.

There is the combination of power and speed within Devyn Ford who racked up 67 carries and three touchdowns to his name by the year’s end.

Maybe it’s Caziah Holmes who carried the ball 51 times in 2020 to give Penn State five different players to carry the ball at least 50 times in 2020. Three of those players were running backs while quarterbacks Sean Clifford and Will Levis combined for 181 attempts on the ground.

It’s an impressive change of pace from a Saquon Barkley’s led room in 2016 and 2017 that saw Barkley carry the ball 489 times over the course of two seasons while the next closest running back – Miles Sanders – carried the ball a combined 56 times over those same years.

Of course having one of the best players in America limits the number of carries anyone not named Saqoun Barkley might have, but for a program that has generally only leaned on a singular feature back over the past several season be it Barkley, Sanders and to some extent Journey Brown – having four different legitimate options at the position is a unique place to be.

“I was telling the guys the other day that I’ve been at places where I look at the sidelines and whoever is standing next to me that’s the guy I’m playing,” running back coach Ja’Juan Seider said this summer. “We’re good enough now where if I look around – whoever is closest to me I’m going to grab and say “hey you’re going into the game.” We should prepare the same way we should understand expectation that at any moment is my opportunity to go play.”

The question of course is when to make the call to switch a running back out of the game. Sure maybe he has the hot hand – or rather the hot legs – but he might also need a breather.

“That’s the million dollar question,” Seider said with a smile. “Mostly it comes with experience. You might see a guy get hot, but what you don’t see on the sideline is his tongue hanging out of his mouth.”

The good news for the Nittany Lions, “next man up” doesn’t look to be a cliche in Penn State’s running back room this year, it looks like the game plan. And a good one at that.