Season-ending rushing performance broadens Nittany Lions' potential

For Ja’Juan Seider, Penn State’s offensive performance Saturday in a 53-39 Cotton Bowl win against Memphis offered something beyond a positive outcome for the Nittany Lions.

Producing 529 yards of total offense, of which 396 were earned through the running game on 53 carries, the Nittany Lions generated their biggest rushing performance of the season, tied a Cotton Bowl record for rushing touchdowns with five, and maybe most important, demonstrated yet another avenue for Penn State to come away with a win.

“It just teaches that we can win in multiple phases, whether it's running the ball or passing the ball, whether it's protecting the ball, not turning the ball over, letting our defense win,” Seider said. “I think as a young team, we found different ways to win this year. We knew that we had one of the best defensive staff and players in the country. We knew that if we can take care of the ball, not turn it over, we felt like we can get 21 points and nobody is going to score that many versus our defense.

“So we just found ourselves and we protected a young group of guys and let them grow up and now you're starting to see the results of letting them grow up and bide their time today. The points we scored we needed today when we needed to have a shootout.”

Journey Brown’s offensive MVP-winning performance alone could have exemplified the point.

Finishing with 202 yards on the ground, Brown’s game is second all-time in New Year’s Six bowls behind only Ezekiel Elliott’s 230 in the 2015 Sugar Bowl and is a new high for Penn State in a bowl.

It also, of course, set a new high for Brown individually during a breakout redshirt sophomore season in which he finished with 890 yards and 12 touchdowns on 129 attempts, good for a team-high 6.9 yards per carry. Brown’s total attempts don’t meet the minimum of 10 carries per game, by one, to be included in the NCAA’s rush yards per carry stat; if his stats were included, he’d currently be fifth.

“I feel like just the line, upfront, those big boys, they really set the tone,” Brown said. “We said coming into this game, we want to control the pace. We want to go fast, we'll go fast. If we want to go slow, we'll go slow. With the wide receivers and tight ends blocking, the edges opened up for what I could do. So kudos goes to them for sure.”

Echoing Brown, fifth-year senior offensive lineman Steven Gonzalez, in his final game as a Nittany Lion, said he wanted to make sure this was a game his offensive line dictated.

“I felt very proud. We always go out every single game and we kind of want to be the tone-setters, we want to be the ones that dictate how the offense is going to go throughout the game,” Gonzalez said. “We always have that mindset that we're going to dictate everything and we're going to do things our way and we're going to do our job and everyone else will do their job and it'll all be good.”

Given Penn State’s 194 other rushing yards on top of Brown’s performance, the Nittany Lions had others also fulfilling their jobs on the day.

Quarterback Sean Clifford again presented a dual-threat capability that had been absent through the back half of Penn State’s schedule due to injury, Devyn Ford cashed in with a touchdown on one of his two attempts, Ricky Slade popped for a 44-yard carry, and true freshman Noah Cain returned to form following an extended injury hiatus of his own, posting 92 yards and two touchdowns on the ground on his 15 carries for the day.

Assessing the significance to the running backs room of putting that type of collective performance together, Cain offered confidence about what the Nittany Lions have now and moving forward into the 2020 season.

“I think we're going to have a lot of respect going into next season from our opposing teams, and that's a good thing because before this season, who really even knew about us?” Cain said. “And now, we're still making plays more and more and our name is more in the spotlight now, so I think it's a good thing to have going into next season.”

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