Assistant Ja'Juan Seider Sizes Up Penn State's Running Backs Room
Penn State’s top rusher from the 2019 season, Journey Brown, will be back with the Nittany Lions in 2020.
The same is true of Penn State’s second (Noah Cain), third (quarterback Sean Clifford), and fourth (Devyn Ford) leading rushers for the season ahead. And with the offseason additions of Rivals four-star running backs Caziah Holmes, a midsemester enrollee, and Keyvone Lee, the Nittany Lion ground game appears pretty well set for the coming months and, more likely, years.
And that mentality shone through as the players already on campus were competing throughout the program’s winter workouts.
“Well, I think they all got the mentality that we got to do better than what we did last year. So how do we get better? What I did last year don't matter this year,” Penn State running backs coach Ja’Juan Seider said. “We talked about pushing each other physically, mentally. Learn how to prepare differently. You have a target on your back because last year, you were supposed to have been the weak link. Now everybody's gonna look at you as one of the better groups in the country. So what are you going to do to get better?
“We did a great job in winter conditioning, pairing them up differently every day. This skill set may be better for this player but that player... learn how to push yourself. I thought what really was cool was all the guys pushing themselves to run with Journey, being able to try to compete and beat him in some of the sprint drills. Just different things to compete to get that competitive nature going.”
Tuesday, Seider met with the media via Zoom web conferencing to talk about a variety of subjects, including his insight and analysis of the group currently under his watch.
Let’s take a look at the player-by-player breakdown to emerge from the session, here:
Journey Brown - 5-11, 216
Seider was effusive in his praise of Brown, not just over his development the past three years but, ultimately, in the quality of his performance down the home stretch of the 2019 season.
Beginning with his start at Minnesota, a 31-26 loss for Penn State, Brown reeled off games with 124 yards and two touchdowns on 14 carries, followed it with 100 yards and a score in a win against Indiana, produced 64 yards and a touchdown on 11 carries at Ohio State, 103 yards and three touchdowns on 16 carries in the season-ending win against Rutgers, and capped it all with a record 202 yards and two touchdowns on 16 carries in the Cotton Bowl win against Memphis.
'The last four or five games, and I know I'm biased, but I thought Journey Brown was playing as good as any running back in the country,” Seider said. “He got freakish athletic ability and strength that he's finally starting to tap into it. I think the thing that I was so impressed in the bowl game is trying to finally get him to play as fast as he is. I thought he finally started to trust his track speed to football now. The way he separated on that one run (a 56-yard touchdown), that's what I've been trying to bring out of him the last couple of years. And I think now he sees it. I think he carried that over into winter conditioning.”
Noah Cain - 5-10, 223
Cain’s debut season with the Nittany Lions was an undeniable rollercoaster for the IMG Academy product.
Setting a freshman record with eight rushing touchdowns on the season, that Cain did so while missing the entirety of three games and appearing for just a quarter at Michigan State before getting hurt makes the accomplishment that much more impressive.
Still, experiencing interesting reps on a per-game basis, scoring twice on nine carries in the Idaho opener, then just once the next week against Buffalo, also for a touchdown, Cain’s high point was a 22 carry, 102-yard evening at Iowa in October and 105 yards and a score on 12 carries against Purdue the weekend prior.
Forced out of action for nearly a month due to an unspecified leg injury sustained at Michigan State before the calendar flipped to November, Cain would have just one more carry in the four games to round out the regular season.
“Noah, he never lacks confidence. It was him just getting healthy, being back the guy that we saw early in the year,” Seider said. “You get those nicks. And muscles, sometimes they take a long time to heal. It's just a process, especially with a kid who's as powerful as he is and runs the way he does and he just took the time to get healed.”
Once that time passed, nearly two full months between his injury in East Lansing and Penn State’s performance against Memphis in the Cotton Bowl, Cain made a splash in his return to action. Generating 92 yards and a pair of touchdowns on just 15 carries, Cain propped up his season totals to 84 carries for 443 yards and eight scores on the season, complemented by seven receptions for 52 yards through the passing game.
“I think getting him back in the bowl game got his confidence back,” Seider said.
Devyn Ford - 5-11, 200
For as confident as Seider said he was in the futures of both Brown and Cain, the running backs coach brought the Nittany Lions’ other true freshman from the 2019 season into the equation, unprompted.
“I think those two guys are gonna do a great job moving forward, but also be cautious, don't count out Devyn Ford,” Seider said. “He is one of those physically gifted kids. I think he's a kid that, you're gonna see a whole other level of Devyn going forward.”
In 12 appearances last season, Ford immediately made a splash when he notched an 81-yard touchdown in Penn State’s season-opening win against Idaho. The carry, part of a six-rep afternoon for 107 yards and a score, proved to be the highlight of a debut season that finished with 52 carries for 294 yards and three touchdowns.
“I think he's a kid who for the first time probably was, like all freshmen, enjoying college a little bit too much. Not saying he was partying, but that much freedom. I think it happened easily to him early and he forgot that you got to do it every week while those kids just kept escalating, getting better throughout the process,” Seider said. “I think he had a great winter conditioning. I'm really excited about him. I view all three of those guys in my mind as starters right now.”
Describing the conditions Ford walked into upon arriving at Penn State last summer, a competitive running backs room that included returners with reps in Journey Brown and Ricky Slade, plus Cain as a midsemester enrollee with a six-month head start, Seider continued by detailing the benefit gained through a winter workout session.
“I don't think the gap is far. I think this kid is so physically gifted. He got the best hips I ever have seen out of a player. I mean, he can sink his hips and explode through the smallest crease,” Seider said. “To him, it was getting bigger. This winter conditioning was huge. This is the first time he had one, while a guy like Noah Cain came in and had a winter conditioning. Journey had multiple. I think he's getting stronger to better take on a blitz. I think all the stuff that you like to see out of a young player go through, he finally got that this winter conditioning. It sucks it was kind of taken away from him, but you understand that situation.
“But I'm excited. I think he's gonna get faster. I think he can be a problem matching up with linebackers in coverage. I think he's gonna play football for a long time, in my opinion.”
Caziah Holmes - 5-11, 208
One of the early highlights of Dwight Galt’s early-March, post-winter workouts conditioning session press conference, Holmes had a learning curve to his first few months on campus.
It was one that was, according to Seider, not considered quite enough in the process of bringing true freshmen onto campus midway through their senior years of high school.
“I think the best thing that I can explain is, he got over the homesickness. A lot of times we take for granted when you bring these mid-year kids in that is easy,” Seider said. “That's the hardest part because they come in January and most of the coaches are on the road recruiting so he didn't get to see the same faces that are were recruiting him. I think him battling through January to get to February, which is the hardest time of winter conditioning, to go through early struggles, it built character for the kid.
“I think we did enough that he got pieces of it with our meetings and our walkthrough, so he can kind of feel like, You know what, I belong here.”
Continuing, Seider explained why.
At first appearing “shy” and “sitting back,” Holmes’ speed proved worthy of a winter conditioning pairing with Brown. And the freshman didn’t back down.
“It was impressive watching them doing shuttle runs versus each other and sprint versus each other,” Seider said. “Journey had to look over one time and said man, this kid can run. He pushed him.
“Now he understands, I can play on this level. So I'm excited to watch him go forward. He does a great job in our Zoom meetings that we have throughout the week of retaining stuff that we put in early. He's another kid who's, I think, gonna be extremely talented with a talented room, and I think he'll get better because of the guys he's in the room with.”
Keyvone Lee - 6-0, 220
Seider held out on providing a full evaluation of Lee, a standout performer who’d committed to Florida before ultimately landing with the Nittany Lions, simply because he hasn’t arrived at campus yet.
Still, the running backs coach identified some of the ingredients needed to ultimately produce success at this level.
“I don't really like to talk about the kids until they get here,” Seider said. “I think he'll be a kid that will fit our room. He's built the right way. He's gonna be an unbelievable, big kid with great football movements. So until we get him here, I'd like to withhold a little bit on him.”
*******
• Talk about this article inside The Lions Den
• Watch our videos and subscribe to our YouTube channel
• Learn more about our print and digital publication, Blue-White Illustrated
• Follow us on Twitter: @BWIonRivals, @NateBauerBWI, @RivalsSnyder, @DavidEckert98, @ThomasFrankCarr
• Like us on Facebook