Cam Wallace’s huge day immediately debunks the Matt Campbell loyalty theories

Almost no matter who the opponent has been this season, the Penn State run game has not been able to get going. The Nittany Lions came out of their bye week and into their Week 9 matchup with Purdue ranked No. 106 in rushing success rate and No. 104 in explosive rush rate. 

Much of those struggles came with Iowa State transfer Carson Hansen shouldering the lion’s share of the carries, and as he averaged 3.9 yards per rush, he drove the theory that head coach Matt Campbell was overly loyal to his Iowa State transfers. 

Loyalty was never the reason that Penn State’s run game wasn’t working. And it wasn’t the reason that former four-star Quinton Martin Jr. was largely glued to the bench. The proof: Cam Wallace’s massive day against Purdue. 

Wallace went for a career-high 135 yards on 22 carries, leading an offense that went for 269 yards and three touchdowns on 51 carries (5.3 yards per rush). 

Wallace, like Martin, was a holdover from James Franklin’s regime. Only, unlike Martin, he played his way onto the field with impressive performances in practice, and as Campbell and offensive coordinator Taylor Mouser reevaluated their run game in the bye week, he emerged as RB1. 

It wasn’t loyalty; it was the absence of a better option. Once Wallace proved he was, both in practice and under the lights on Saturday, he clearly outsnapped Hansen, who also had his most productive day. 

Cam Wallace is what Penn State fans wanted Quinton Martin Jr. to be

It’s not as though Martin was completely iced out in Big Ten play. The former four-star got 11 carries over three games and only managed 22 yards. That’s just 2.0 yards per carry. For as poorly as Hansen was running the ball, he was outperforming Martin. 

Wallace appeared to be the odd man out in a four-man running back room, but now he’s the top option in a run game that has a completely new identity. Hansen is clearly the RB2, and both Martin and Peoples have been phased out. That rotation has nothing to do with Campbell’s prior relationships, and everything to do with who the best players are in that room. Because against Purdue, even Hansen was excellent, chipping in with 96 yards on 17 carries with a touchdown and a long of 48 yards. 

Penn State entered Week 9 without a single carry of over 10 yards in Big Ten play. Wallace and Hansen each produced one in the first quarter. Even Zay Robinson chipped in an 11-yard carry on a jet sweep in the second half. 

Why was the run game so much better? Well, Wallace’s emergence is part of it. So is a Purdue defense that came in ranked No. 91 in defensive rushing success rate and No. 125 in explosive rush rate. However, the biggest piece is a newfound identity that caters to the offensive line’s strengths. 

Taylor Mouser finally settled on a run game identity

Mouser was desperately trying to figure out what his run game should look like through the first seven games. To that end, he was mixing and matching between zone and gap scheme runs and leaving his offense without an identity. 

After the bye week, he stripped it down and went heavy gap scheme, allowing his maulers up front, Cooper Cousins and Anthony Donkoh, to get vertical movement and his athletes, Brock Riker, Trevor Buhr, and Malachi Goodman, to play in space. Goodman in particular was struggling with the zone runs. 

Conveniently, Wallace looked like a much more patient back on those runs, allowing the blocks to develop, rather than rushing and putting his offensive line and tight ends in tough spots. Peoples is especially the one-cut zone-style runner, and this shift means he’ll likely be a non-factor the rest of the way. But if Penn State runs the ball anything close to how it did against Purdue, he probably won’t be missed.

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