Penn State football: Backfield situation isn’t as clear as some believe
Many believe Penn State football’s backfield should just feature Journey Brown and Noah Cain — but that won’t be happening any time soon.
There’s quite a strange situation going on in Happy Valley in 2019. Penn State football has decided this season that instead of featuring a single running back on their offense, they are going to utilize all four running backs on their depth chart.
Ricky Slade, Journey Brown, Noah Cain, and Devyn Ford are all highly-touted prospects who don’t exactly have to wait a while for their turn. As James Franklin stated throughout the summer, each running back will get a fair share of carries. Here we are, five weeks into the season and the head coach has stood by his word.
At this point, many want to believe that the Nittany Lions are beginning to narrow down the rotation from four guys to two — but that’s not going to happen.
Not yet, at least. Recently, Penn State’s running backs coach Ja’Juan Seider discussed the subject and made it quite clear that despite what many outside of the program believe, the backfield situation is not all that clear.
“It’s not a big margin of separation between one and four as some people may want to see it,” Coach Seider stated earlier in the week, according to Lions247’s Tyler Donohue. “I’m around these guys every day, and my job is to make the best decision that’s gonna help Penn State win.”
Although there were some subtle changes as of late, such as making Journey Brown the starter and sending Ricky Slade down a spot on the depth chart — there’s still no shot the Lions ditch the four-person committee anytime soon.
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As Penn State recruited all four prospects for the same reason, they figure why not use them while they can to keep the other fresh? While we may see the Nittany Lions elect to roll with the hot hand more, there’s a little-to-no chance they ditch the rest entirely.
Right now, what Penn State has done is working — hence their undefeated record. You know the saying, “if it’s not broken, then don’t fix it.” This quote appplies to Seider’s backfield. The sky is the limit for this group, and so far, the small sample size has been promising.