Penn State Football: Backfield situation hasn’t cleared up yet

The Penn State football backfield still hasn’t found a clear-cut number one back through two weeks.

It’s been quite a while since Penn State football hasn’t had a clear-cut number one running back. Since 2015, the Nittany Lions have had their focus on having one running back leading the pack, and they were fortunate enough to have a guy like Saquon Barkley take over.

Then in 2018 when Barkley departed, Miles Sanders resumed with his role. Despite having a five-star recruit waiting behind Sanders to take over, Penn State elected to change the approach. Instead of handing all the carries to one guy, they decided to utilize all talent on board.

Now, the Nittany Lions are attempting to use a running back by committee, rather than relying on one set of legs. Considering that Penn State has some extremely talented backs on board, it’s not such a bad approach. However, there’s still a question mark looming through two weeks, as not a single back has necessarily stood out from the pack.

If you take a look a look at Penn State’s weekly depth chart through three weeks, you’ll see that Ricky Slade takes the top spot. However, the order of listing doesn’t matter considering that the first four backs have “or” next to their name. Nobody has a definitive role.

Tallying up the workload

Through two weeks, Journey Brown leads the pack with 11 carries, averaging a team-high of six yards-per-carry. While many assumed Ricky Slade would be in this position considering where he was last year, this fact really shouldn’t shock anybody.

After all, Penn State head coach James Franklin had a lot to say about Journey Brown in the offseason in terms of talking him up to the media. However, Slade doesn’t even come second to Brown. Instead, the freshman Noah Cain places next to Brown with ten total carries.

Meanwhile, Slade has accounted for only 17 yards off of eight carries thus far. And Devyn Ford comes last with seven carries. Thanks to a monster run in week one though, Ford surprisingly leads the team in rushing yards with 108 total.

We figured the Nittany Lions would have the backfield figured out by now, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. According to James Franklin, the running back picture “hasn’t cleared up,” yet. As their assumed starter has been struggling with not only carries but also holding onto the football, the situation has become a lot more confusing than initially anticipated.

However, Franklin won’t put too much fault solely on the rushers though. “It’s not just the running backs,” Franklin told Audrey Snyder of The Athletic. “It’s the o-line, it’s the tight ends, it’s all of it factoring in.”  Perhaps, this week, one of the rushers on board begins to separate from the pack a bit. While hopes are still high that Slade can get out of the funk he seems to be in, it looks like Brown and Cain currently have the upper-hand.