Penn State football’s James Franklin offers insight on Noah Cain, Devyn Ford
Penn State football head coach James Franklin recently discussed the true freshman of the Lions’ backfield.
Summer is beginning to wind down, which means the NCAA football season is soon to be here. In just a few weeks, the Penn State football program will be gearing up to kick off the 2019 regular season after spending months just focusing on next year’s recruiting class. With recruiting events officially out of the way until next offseason, the Lions are focusing on 2019 — and 2019 only.
Last week, James Franklin and the rest of the roster took the field for the first sessions of preseason practice. Although the media only got to see so much during the official media day, Coach Franklin has made himself available recently to discuss what has been going on.
As you can expect, the Lions’ head coach is excited about what he’s seen so far — especially on the offensive side of the ball. Given that Penn State is moving on from some key players this season, that’s where all the focus will be until the unit proves themselves. You already know what’s going on at quarterback. Will Levis and Sean Clifford are still battling it out for QB1, and the winner hasn’t been made apparent yet to Franklin or offensive coordinator, Ricky Rahne.
What about the running back position, though? As we know — Penn State has lost not one, but two starting running backs over the last two years in Saquon Barkley and Miles Sanders. Being that those two became first and second-round picks, Penn State has recently established themselves as rushing heavy school. Now, we have to see what they have in the replacements.
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This year, it is assumed the Lions might roll with a committee approach in the backfield. Ricky Slade is the assumed number one back this year, based off of his workload last season. Journey Brown is another guy Coach Franklin was particularly excited about seeing as well. As if those two aren’t enough, the Nittany Lions have two true freshmen with high upside as well.
Four-star 2019 prospects Noah Cain and Devyn Ford are both highly-touted players that will join the Lions this year. Although Brown and Slade rank higher on the depth chart, don’t be surprised to see these two guys get some work in as Franklin recently talked them both up.
"“Noah’s going to show up when it’s live, his running style and things like that, it’s breaking tackles, it’s falling forward. He’s the guy that’s going to get four yards on a consistent basis. He’s going to get a 12-yarder, and you’re going to look down on the stat sheet and he’s going to have 100 yards, and it didn’t feel like it.”"
Cain entered the Lions’ recruiting class ranked as the 98th prospect in the nation and sixth out of all running back’s. So far, he’s been productive in camp as Franklin has pointed out. Also, the head coach is a fan of his approach, toughness, and maturity for such a young player. On the other hand, Franklin wasn’t exactly sure what to expect from Devyn Ford.
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"“You know, it’s funny, because that was probably the one thing off (his) high school film that we weren’t sure about. He was unbelievably productive but we weren’t sure what his top-end speed was, and he can run.’’"
Franklin knew he had an excellent prospect in Ford, who actually ranked one spot higher than Noah Cain for running backs. Unfortunately, Franklin just wasn’t sure how the Lions were going to use him. So far, he’s been impressive, but it sure sounds like the Lions are still figuring out what they can do with all four of these guys when it comes to game day. We shall soon see.