Penn State hasn’t had a 100-yard rusher since Keyvone Lee had 134 last year against Michigan 11 games ago.
The Nittany Lions have failed to reach even 100 yards as a team five times this season. They rank 114th nationally with only 108.1 yards per game.
The burning question is whether blame for the ineffective ground game falls on the running backs or the offensive linemen.
“It’s the whole team,” running backs coach Ja’Juan Seider said Thursday. “It’s all of us on offense, man. You guys watch the film. You guys see what’s going on. You guys are smart, so you know what’s going on.”
Penn State netted 33 yards on 29 carries last week in a 33-24 loss at Ohio State, a game in which Seider and head coach James Franklin say they saw encouraging signs.
The Lions had four designed runs on third down against the Buckeyes and converted all four: Sean Clifford, 2 yards on third-and-1; John Lovett, 4 yards on third-and-1; Lovett, 3 yards on third-and-2; and Lee, 1 yard on third-and-goal from the 1.
A week earlier against Illinois, they called for two third-down runs and failed to convert either. They also couldn’t score on two runs from the 3-yard line in overtime. Short-yardage has been a season-long problem.
“The numbers don’t say we had a lot of rushing yards (against Ohio State),” Seider said, “but we were efficient. You look at our third-and-shorts. Those handoffs were for first downs that we didn’t get early in the year.”
Seider said Penn State will continue to rotate Lovett, Lee and Noah Cain at running back unless one clearly separates himself from the rest.
The 5-10, 220-pound Cain looked like a future star as a freshman in 2019. He began last season as the No. 1 running back after Journey Brown was forced to retire because of a heart condition.
Cain, however, suffered a broken foot on the season-opening series and didn’t return until this season. He leads the Lions with 258 rushing yards, but he’s averaging just 3.1 yards a carry and hasn’t looked like he did two years ago.
“Sometimes you forget that the kid had a whole year off,” Seider said, “and the expectation is he’ll come back and pick right back up where he left off. Maybe the expectation and the pressure that he put on himself is too much.
“What I challenge him to do is, ‘You’ve got to get out of this fog thinking of other things and trying to be the reason why everything has to click for us. We don’t need you to be a superhero. We just need you to be Noah.’ ”
The 6-0, 239-pound Lee has almost half as many carries as Cain, but he’s averaging 4.9 yards, the most among the trio of backs being used. He’s been Penn State’s most effective runner.
“I’ve been challenging him to be more of a bully, to take the game to the defense,” Seider said. “There are times when he’s getting a hole and he gets initial contact. If he breaks that tackle, you’d like to see him get vertical instead of bouncing things.
“For a guy who’s as physical as he is with his size and speed, I’d like him to be more of an enforcer and not play like a scatback in certain moments.”
The Lions will have another chance to get their ground game on track Saturday at 3:30 (TV-FS1) at Maryland, which has surrendered 530 rushing yards the last two weeks to Indiana and Minnesota.
“You guys know what type of backs we have,” Seider said. “If these guys get an opportunity, good things are going to happen for them. They haven’t forgotten how to play the game. I damn sure haven’t forgotten how to coach.
“I keep telling my guys to keep pressing forward. This thing is gonna turn.”
Source: Berkshire mont
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