For Ja’Juan Seider, the running backs room at West Virginia in 2013 is a good place to start.

His first season back in Morgantown as a position coach, Seider oversaw the likes of Charles Sims, Wendell Smallwood, Rushel Shell, and Dreamius Smith. Within that group, Sims became a third-round NFL draft pick in 2014, Smallwood went in the fifth to the Philadelphia Eagles in 2016, Smith spent three seasons in the league as an undrafted free agent, and Shell had a cup of coffee with the Steelers in 2017.

Now confronted with the challenge of divvying up reps among another talented room including Ricky Slade, Journey Brown, Noah Cain, Devyn Ford, and possibly Notre Dame transfer C.J. Holmes, Seider drew comparisons for the atmosphere being created with the Nittany Lions.

“Let that guy who is number one know, you can relax if you want to, but you can also be number four, or vice versa. So it just creates an edge in your room,” Seider told BWI last month. “I had it when I was at West Virginia… All of those guys had NFL chances. That room was so deep where nobody could relax. They just continued to push each other, and that's what makes a team go from number five to number one, because of the depth.”

Coming off a span of four seasons in which Penn State’s running back position has been dominated by a single feature ballcarrier, Saquon Barkley gobbling up 182, 272, and 217 carries in his three seasons, respectively, followed by Miles Sanders’ 220 touches in 2018, the Nittany Lions are expecting to see a much less lopsided distribution in the slate ahead.

And though head coach James Franklin tabbed Slade and Brown as having separated themselves somewhat at the position, Seider insisted Cain made enough of a mark in the spring that he’ll play this season as well.

The result is a status in which the separation from the presumptive first-teamer, Slade, is not necessarily drastic between Brown or Cain.

“It's going to be an ebb and flow. Right now, if you say how we came out of spring, it's really stacked up on each other, one, two, three,” said Seider. “But it can change. Three is close to one. That gap is not big. Is it a little stretched, maybe.

“I thought Ricky had a really good spring. I thought he had a spring where if we had to play today, he'd be the first guy walking out. I thought there was a point in the spring where I thought Journey was about to take it from Ricky. And I thought a point in the spring when Noah was a long way away to them and then, three weeks into spring, oh shoot, this dude is climbing up your heels.”

Adding that Cain brings a different type of mentality to the room than what might be typical, partly a product of his two seasons at IMG Academy in Florida, Seider said that his competition in the room should not ignore that reality.

“You better not relax with him because his mentality is different,” said Seider. “Football means more to him than anything in this world. It's his approach. It's just the way he was brought up. I think that's what going south does for you. Football is heaven down there, they live for it, so it's like a breath of fresh air.”

In the brief duration of Rivals four-star Devyn Ford’s stay at Penn State, Seider said he’s seen a similar drive. Said Seider, “His approach is different. ‘I want more, I want more, I want more.’ I said I can only give you so much because we only got so much time.”

How the Nittany Lions spend that time, now just weeks away from the start of preseason camp leading into the 2019 schedule, remains of serious interest to Seider moving forward.

Already understanding the body transformations that have taken hold of Slade (once 215 pounds, down to 185 pounds in the spring, now back into the 190-200 pound range) as well as Brown (“I tell Journey, if I had his body, I would never have a shirt on”) and Cain (“You see how toned and defined he is now”), Seider said he hopes the group doesn’t let up an inch on its motivations as the season gets closer.

“I hope they understand how hard we worked to get to this point and how much harder we gotta work to take the next stage,” said Seider. “We always say every part of the year is a quarter. First quarter, second quarter, third quarter, and summer is that fourth quarter leading into the season.

“The good thing for me is, there has been a foundation set from Saquon and Miles. It's a standard. It's not an option. When you come here to be this guy, you must carry the torch. Now, the good thing, you might not have to carry it by yourself like they have, but it's a torch and we gotta carry it. And it's a brotherhood in that room, that's understood, and this is where it's going to be.”