Penn State Football: Deep dive into the running game, its correlation to success

Penn State Football was one of the worst teams in the country last season in terms of their running game, but throughout James Franklin’s tenure, the success of the running game has closely reflected the success of the team as a whole.

Take yourself back to December 28th of 2019, Penn State Football vs. Memphis in the Cotton Bowl, a game in which the Nittany Lions’ rushing attack, led by Journey Brown, would dominate the game en route to a 53-49 victory for the Nittany Lions.

In that game, Penn State Football running backs combined to rush for 354 yards at 7.8 yards per carry, and five touchdowns. At the time, all seemed right with Penn State Football and their running game.

Fast forward to the 2021 campaign, where the Nittany Lions had just six rushing touchdowns by their running backs on the entire season, four by Noah Cain, and two by Keyvone Lee.

In fact, the team had almost as many rushing touchdowns from non-running backs as they did from the running backs themselves.

Sean Clifford had two touchdowns, Tyler Warren had two, and Jahan Dotson had one.

Over the past two seasons, Penn State Football has averaged an even four yards per carry by running backs in 2021, and 4.5 yards per carry by their backs in 2020.

Keep in mind that this only takes running backs into consideration that saw some carries in meaningful moments of games, so in 2021 that number includes Lee, Cain, John Lovett, and Devyn Ford. In 2020, it includes Lee, Ford, and Caziah Holmes.

In the past two years, the Nittany Lions are an even 11-11 (.500 winning percentage), averaging just 26.9 points per game. Meanwhile, In the 2016 through 2019 seasons, they went 42-11 (.792), and averaged 36.2 points per game in that four-year stretch that saw them win a Big Ten Championship and a pair of New Year’s Six bowl games.

Statistically, the change in offensive and team success can be directly traced directly back to the running game.

Here are some basic rushing statistics for each season from 2016 through 2019. Again, these numbers just include the primary few running backs in each season.

• 2019: 5.6 yds/carry – 26 touchdowns
• 2018: 5.2 yds/carry – 19 touchdowns
• 2017: 6.1 yds/carry – 21 touchdowns
• 2016: 5.5 yds/carry – 25 touchdowns

All of these numbers are far better than what was put up in 2020 and 2021 by Penn State.

Another interesting number to look at is how many games Penn State Football has had a 100-yard rusher. After Journey Brown rushed for 202 yards in that Cotton Bowl win, and Noah Cain almost reached the century mark as well, rushing for 92 yards, the Nittany Lions have had a 100-yard rusher just once in the 22 games since then. That one time came when Keyvone Lee rushed for 134 yards at Michigan in the first win of the 2020 season.

This is how many times Penn State Football had a 100-yard rusher from 2016-19.

• 2019: 8 – five by Brown, two by Cain, one by Ford
• 2018: 5 – all by Miles Sanders
• 2017: 5 – all by Saquon Barkley
• 2016: 5 – all by Saquon Barkley

For further evaluation, let’s backtrack to the first two seasons of the James Franklin era, when the Nittany Lions went 7-6 in each season. In 2015, Penn State’s primary backs averaged 4.8 yards per rush, and in 2014, 3.9. See the correlation?

For fun, we’ll go even further back to before James Franklin’s time and look at the combined rushing averages for the top two backs on some the most successful teams in Penn State Football history.

• 2008: 6.0 yds/carry
• 2005: 5.1 yds/carry
• 1994: 6.3 yds/carry
• 1986: 5.2 yds/carry
• 1982: 5.4 yds/carry
• 1973: 4.9 yds/carry

A dominant running game is critical to Penn State Football’s success

So, it is quite clear that the Nittany Lions can only go as far as the running game will take them. Granted, a lack of a running game will hurt any team at any level, but based on these numbers, the common denominator is the running game.

In seasons where the primary ball-carriers average at least five yards per carry, Penn State Football (under James Franklin) has never lost less than nine games, but in seasons when they averaged less than five, they have never won more than seven games.

The team does not have to necessarily use a run-heavy approach, but they do need to be effective when they do opt to hand it off, which keeps the defense honest. They especially need to be able to run the ball effectively with a lead in the fourth quarter, allowing them to put the game away without having to put the ball in the air. Perhaps most importantly, a solid ground attack will open up the passing game and take some pressure off the quarterback.

Statistically, Sean Clifford’s best season came in 2019 as a first-year starter. While his performance this past season was better than in 2020, it still wasn’t as good as his 2019 campaign.

What changed? The running game.

Clifford was still the same quarterback, and should have ideally gotten better with more experience, but the inability to consistently pick up positive chunks of yardage on the ground over the past two seasons has forced Clifford and the passing attack to have to carry the weight of the offense, even in short-yardage situations.

Having a capable rushing attack also allows teams to win the time-of-possession battle, a category that Penn State lost in most of their games this past season, even the wins. This forces the defense to have to spend far too much time on the field, when even good defenses will eventually succumb to fatigue.

You can point fingers wherever you want for the ineffective running game, but the truth is, everyone shoulders some of the blame. Head coach, offensive coordinator, offensive line coach, tight ends coach, running backs coach, offensive linemen, tight ends, and running backs. All of these parties are responsible in some capacity, exactly how much each party is responsible is open for discussion.

With the Nittany Lions’ most productive back from a year ago in Keyvone Lee returning, Nicholas Singleton entering the picture, some new faces along the offensive line, and some stability at offensive coordinator, hopefully Penn State Football can get back to effectively running the ball in 2022, and in turn, get back to being a top-15 team, pushing the double-digit win threshold, competing to win the Big Ten east, and putting themselves in the New Year’s Six/playoff discussion.

As mentioned earlier, the Nittany Lions averaged 26.9 points per game over the past two seasons, but in the four seasons prior, when they had a much better running game, they averaged 36.2 points per game. That’s a difference of 9.3 points per game, so we’ll round down to an even nine for the sake of this next hypothetical.

If Penn State had scored nine more points in each of their games in 2021, they would have finished the regular season at least 11-1, as their biggest margin of defeat was nine points to Ohio State. Even if they scored just six or seven more points per game, they still go 11-1, as their next biggest regular-season loss in terms of point differential was by four points against Michigan.

If the primary two or three backs can average over five yards per carry this year, find the endzone more often, and hopefully have at least a few 100-yard rushing games, the offense can take a big step forward and, as a result, the team can win a lot more games too. If not, it could be another long season for Penn State Football.