Admittedly, Noah Cain’s perception has changed.
Suffering through a pair of injuries that derailed his breakout true freshman season in 2019, then upended his starting role as a sophomore in 2020, the extended absences have naturally had that influence.
How extended?
Absent a 15-carry performance for 92 yards and two touchdowns in the Nittany Lions’ Cotton Bowl win against Memphis on Dec. 28, 2019, Cain has missed the entirety of 11 games in the past two seasons. Maybe more tellingly, though, hurt at Michigan State on Oct. 26, 2019, then again at Indiana on Oct. 24, 2020, Penn State’s redshirt sophomore running back has accrued just 30 in-game carries in the past 668 days.
In that time, the player who had already shown flashes of game-changing potential has matured into something well past the running back he had once been.
“(I have come) a long way,” Cain said Saturday at Penn State’s preseason media day. “I feel like, just being a student of the game, I came a long way watching the film, preparing, how I work out. It's just a whole lot different from before I got hurt.”
What isn’t different, Cain and the rest of the Penn State football program are counting on, is the ability that propelled him to the top of the running backs depth chart in the first place.
Rotating series equally in a room that then also featured Ricky Slade, Journey Brown, and Devyn Ford, Cain’s 12 carries for 105 yards and a touchdown against Purdue helped to set up a 22-carry, 102-yard, one-score night in Penn State’s win at Iowa on Oct. 12, 2019. A pair of performances that built on an early-season stretch of four touchdowns in his first three career games, Cain’s future was shaping up to be one of tremendous impact as a Nittany Lion.
“You think about his freshman year, he ran for eight touchdowns,” running backs coach Ja’Juan Seider said. “At one point, he took it. We talk about separating. He separated. He took the job. We forget what that kid did as a freshman up at Kinnick Stadium to help us win that game.”
Two weeks later in his first career start at Spartans Stadium, though, Cain’s trajectory quickly diverted course. Suffering a high ankle sprain in East Lansing, Mich., after carrying the ball six times for 21 yards in the first quarter, Cain would be forced to the sidelines in a setback that extended beyond the physical for the young running back.
“You’re talking about a kid who never got hurt,” Seider said, “so he didn’t know how to handle that.”
Able to bounce back for a strong performance against Memphis in Dallas to close the book on 2019, Cain entered the 2020 season as a co-starter with Brown. But while the misfortune of Brown’s career-ending hypertrophic cardiomyopathy diagnosis created a starring opportunity for Cain, it also was derailed almost immediately by an injury Seider described as a “freak deal” just four plays into the first possession of the first game of the year.
“He was trying to get an extra yard and I guess his feet got tangled up in there and the next thing you know, he’s got a broken foot,” Seider said. “Injuries happen. You hate to label a kid as being fragile. I can promise you, that kid is not fragile. He just had bad luck.”
Expected to compete with a crowded room that now contains four other highly touted running backs, Cain’s misfortune is one that now might shape the Nittany Lions positively moving forward.
Showing his physical recovery from his injury this summer in multiple social media posts and videos, Cain has returned to his position as the first back getting carries at Penn State’s practices this preseason. And though he’ll need to assert himself and his ability against backs also vying for opportunities, Cain’s influence has broadened beyond that of being a competitor.
Well-liked by his fellow position-mates and admired for his willingness to push through the challenges that have upended his past two seasons, Cain has adopted a presence befitting of his experiences as the 2021 season quickly approaches.
“Coach Seider has asked me just to be the best teammate I could be,” Cain said. “All I try to do is try to give them the most wisdom I have and just try to get guys better, just try to work every day and bring that one day at a time approach, and just keep getting better.”
Determined to make an impact both on and off the field this season, the question left for Cain is, to what extent?
Playing within an offense authored by coordinator Mike Yurcich designed to see at least three backs get carries each game, the Nittany Lions are also very much seeking a feature ball-carrier. To create rhythm, Yurcich acknowledged the need for the “best” running back to get enough carries and generate that flow.
Having done it previously, twice now, it’s a process for which Cain will need to emerge again to secure that role.
“How I see the running back room and how do we get somebody to emerge? It's simple,” Yurcich said. “You compete your butt off. You practice hard. You play hard. And then we'll figure out who emerges from that. And when you constantly compete against one another, you make each other better, and then your most talented, most competitive player will rise to the top. That's how it happens, that's the process.”
Having endured a grueling process that has now extended to bridge two seasons of football, it’s also one Cain has resolved to welcome.
Keeping in mind the alternative, one in which he's come to understand deeply the frustration of injury preventing his participation in the game he loves, a new perspective has emerged for Cain.
“I’m so appreciative to be back out here,” Cain said. “My gratitude has come a long way, just really appreciating the game, appreciating the small things that I overlooked before I got hurt.”
Making believers of teammates and coaches, all of whom appear equally determined to see Cain's return to the potential he once showed, the door is again open to that possibility.
"Noah’s going to have a big season," graduate transfer running back John Lovett said. "He had a foot injury last year that sat him down, but Noah’s going to bounce back. That’s all I can say. Noah’s gonna bounce back."
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