Penn State Football: James Franklin won’t budge on RB rotation
Penn State football head coach James Franklin refuses to ditch the committee running back by committee approach after Week 7.
Week after week, Penn State football head coach James Franklin has to field questions regarding the running back position. Over the years, this didn’t need to happen, considering the Nittany Lions typically ran with one featured back all season long.
Nowadays, though, there’s too much talent to leave on the shelf. Ricky Slade, Journey Brown, Noah Cain, and Devyn Ford all have a solid skillset, which can be used differently in the offense. While some are performing better than others, James Franklin and Ricky Rahne are still willing to give everybody a chunk of the workload.
It’s been like that all season long, with no planned end in sight. Franklin did leave the door open to potentially trim down the heavy rotation at some point when he figures it out — but right now, the Nittany Lions head coach is happy with the way things are going.
Seven weeks into the season, we’ve seen flashes from a handful of running backs. We saw a slight mix-up on the depth chart as Journey Brown began starting over Slade. Also, we found out that Penn State’s favorite could very well be Noah Cain, but they won’t come outright and say that.
Many in Happy Valley want the true freshman Noah Cain to take over the reins, but it won’t happen. While the young running back does seem to have more of a defined role than everybody else does, the other three guys are still going to get their fair share.
Franklin’s theory
Statecollege.com’s Ben Jones asked Franklin about the running back situation on Tuesday. To further clarify what’s going on in the backfield, Franklin kept it pretty simple. There’s a planned schedule for the backs heading into the matchup, and everybody gets in on the rotation.
When it comes to Noah Cain, though, he has an extra duty. When Penn State is running their four-minute offense, Cain is the go-to back. That comes as no surprise, considering he’s been clutch late situations during the Pittsburgh and Iowa matchups.
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So Cain won’t win ‘feature back’ once again this week — but at least his role is more defined. And with that, we can see if Penn State truly needs to rely solely on one running back at a point, the coaching staff won’t be reluctant to do so. Just last week, the three backs, not name Noah Cain totaled for 12 carries, with four apiece. Meanwhile, Cain picked up 22 attempts for himself.