noah cain

This would be a nice sight to see on Saturday [Patrick Barron]

Michigan and Penn State are slated to do battle this week in a game that has huge stakes, with the Wolverines having the ability to keep their B1G East hopes alive if they can notch a win in Happy Valley. Last season was a disappointment for Penn State, finishing 4-5, and this year hasn't quite gone as planned either, despite the Nittany Lions starting the season 5-0. They now sit at 6-3 and have a difficult close to the season with Michigan and Michigan State in the final three weeks. Today we will look at the offensive side of the equation for Penn State and will attempt to sort out the strengths and weaknesses for this team. 

 

The Film: We're using PSU-OSU. Earlier in the season I had planned to use Wisconsin due to its schematic similarity to the Michigan defense, but ultimately I decided that that game was simply too long ago to be optimal. Instead, the Ohio State game was only a few weeks back and in terms of advanced metrics, the Buckeye defense is ranked in the same ballpark as the Michigan defense, so there's a decent comparison to use here. Penn State played Ohio State surprisingly close in Columbus, with the game being a one possession contest until late in the fourth quarter, so the tape of the entire game is very much informative. 

Personnel: Seth's chart, click for big. 

For the third straight season, the Nittany Lions are running out Sean Clifford as the starting QB. He's dealt with some injuries this season and it's not clear how close he is to 100% at the present, but Clifford is mostly the same player he's always been. We'll see plenty of him in this piece. At RB, Noah Cain is the starter, but there is plenty of rotation among the backups, particularly John Lovett and Keyvone Lee. Farther down the depth chart you'll find Devyn Ford and Caziah Holmes, as PSU's RB room is still a clown car, but they are less notable. 

WR revolves around the star Jahan Dotson, who has become the next great Penn State receiver, following in the footsteps of KJ Hamler and Allen Robinson. His partner in crime Parker Washington isn't bad either, and KeAndre Lambert-Smith rounds out the top three names at this position for the Nittany Lions. There's a hefty drop off beyond the three starters, with Cam Sullivan-Brown's four catches constituting the nominal "#4 receiver" for this team.

Instead of using a fourth WR, PSU goes to its TEs, who look a little bit different without Pat Freiermuth around any more. Brenton Strange and Theo Johnson are the two who see a lot of snaps, with two TE sets not being unusual to the PSU offense. Strange and Johnson have nearly an identical number of catches, as both get real run in the passing attack, but neither have emerged as major impact players yet. Tyler Warren is the only other TE to get snaps this season, but he's more of a blocking TE used in running-specific situations.  

Penn State has a pretty consistent starting five on the OL, rolling with Rasheed Walker at LT and Caedan Wallace at RT, a tandem that has been rough, to say the least. On the inside, the grades are a little better, but I couldn't honestly tell from watching the tape of this one (as you will see). The starters at guard are Eric Wilson at LG and Juice Scruggs at RG, with C Mike Miranda in the middle. Leftover snaps on the interior go to Bryce Effner and to Olumuyiwa Fashanu on the outside, but they are not going to see much time, barring injury. The story of Penn State's season offensively has been the profound problems along the offensive line, and so we will talk a good bit about this group in the piece. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: An OL Massacre]

Noah Cain and PSU sit atop our list [Patrick Barron]

We're back for Part II of our The Enemy, Ranked series. Last week we covered quarterbacks and today we're handling the running backs. The Big Ten has a lot of shuffling at the running back position this year, and because of the way that college football has progressed, most teams enter the season with a committee of backs and the workload for each is yet to be determined. Michigan is much like the rest of the conference in that way, with several compelling names, but uncertainty regarding the pecking order. I set out to rank each team based on the positional group, so the quality of names at the top, as well as the depth/amount of names play a big role here. If a team doesn't have a returning starter, I defer to the program's track record at developing quality players at that position, as well as recruiting profiles, just as I did in the quarterbacks piece. 

 

1. Penn State

Few teams in the country have five different running backs who all have 50+ career carries to their name AND have maintained >4.0 YPC for their career. Penn State is one of those teams. The Nittany Lions enter this season with five viable players at the running back position, all of could may see substantial work this season. First up is Noah Cain, a former top 100 recruit from the 2019 class who played second fiddle to the electric Journey Brown back in 2019. Cain seemed to be in line to be the #1 back last season after Journey Brown was forced to tragically retire from football due to a heart condition, but a leg injury sustained in the first series of the season opener against Indiana in week one ended his season. That was a shame, because Cain looked primed to be a breakout name nationally after rushing for 443 yards (5.3 YPC) as a true freshman in '19, setting PSU's program record for TD's by a freshman with 8. His 2019 campaign included one of the best grades ever handed out to a running back in MGoBlog's history, when Seth lavished praise on Cain ahead of that season's Michigan/PSU duel in Happy Valley. You can go back and read that FFFF to get a sense of how good Cain could be, now in his 3rd year in the program. Though the awaited breakout year may have had to wait a season, it could very easily transpire this fall. Cain is back from injury and sits atop the depth chart. 

Cain alone would put the Nittany Lions in conversation for a spot towards the top of this list, but what solidifies PSU at #1 is the absurd glut of options behind Noah Cain. With both Cain and Brown out for the what was nearly the entirety of last season, it fell on the shoulders of Keyvone Lee, Caziah Holmes, and Devyn Ford to pick up the slack, and they did a solid job of that. Lee was the "starter" last season, with 4.9 YPC on 89 carries last season + 4 scores, while adding 12 catches too, doing it as a true freshman. He could very easily best Cain to become the #1 back. Holmes was also a true freshman last fall and rushed for 4.5 YPC on 51 carries and added two touchdowns. Ford has 119 carries over two seasons in State College, with a career 4.8 YPC, six touchdowns, and twelve catches. All of these guys would be good backups to Cain on their own, but the fact there are three of them is absurd. And then, because I guess James Franklin only buys products in bulk, PSU landed a highly experienced grad transfer RB in John Lovett from Baylor. Lovett was a multi-year starter with the Bears, boasting 355 career carries and a 5.1 YPC clip to go with it + 29 catches and 17 career TD's. 

I really have no idea how all five of these RB's are going to be able to play each week, and they're all good enough that they deserve to be on the field. In all likelihood, this position group will closely resemble tossing a single Slim Jim to a pack of five hungry dogs and watching them fight it out. Someone's going to get squeezed out and I'd be shocked if PSU ended the season without at least one guy entering the portal. That said, having five quality, experienced RB options is not a bad thing at all, and it will allow the Nittany Lions to sustain potentially multiple injuries and make it out alright on the ground, as they did last season. This group will need better OL play to improve on some of their stat lines last season, but if you're a Penn State fan, RB should be the least of your worries going into 2021. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: More running backs by committees]

Miles Sanders has departed, Cain has arrived. [Eric Upchurch]

Resources: My charting, PSU game notes, PSU roster, CFBstats

It's a Franklin team: some ludicrous skill position players, a questionable offensive line, and five-stars all over the place. The main differences versus last year is the pass protection is a bit better, they have a ridiculously tough new top-100 running back we all remember from when Michigan was trying to get him, and the Speedy Eaglet is loose. A concern is the Joe Moorhead Space Ferrari stuff still looks very hard to defend, and Ricky Rahne is starting to get more comfortable at sticking to a few of them he understands instead of randomly punching buttons. Also the new "pocket" quarterback has transformed himself into a true dual threat. Also it's a white-out night game—yes, for the fourth time in five visits—because the rest of their home schedule is Idaho-Buffalo-Pitt-Purdue-Indiana-Rutgers, and heaven forbid Pitt ever think they're a rival.

The film: Iowa. At Kinnick. At night. Where they avoided getting Kinnick'd. Which might be the scariest thing. Also this was last week, Michigan is now a Cover 2 team, and even I wouldn't want to touch that game when they got outgained by Pitt at home and won because Narduzzi thinks math is for nerds.

For this they drew the notorious John O'Neill officiating crew, who were their usual, game-overshadowing selves. I usually try to avoid these clown shows because the players know how bad they are and start using it to get an edge. I did my best to try to ignore things that would get flagged normally unless it got too egregious.

Personnel: My diagram:

 

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PDF version, full-size version (or click on the image)

I charted the running back rotation because they're trying to find snaps for four guys. True freshman RB Noah Cain (+23/-2 on 44 snaps) got the slight majority of snaps due to taking over the 4th quarter. He's the next one of Those guys. Classmate Devyn Ford (+1,-0 on 17 snaps) is a high-acceleration complement, and Journey Brown (+2/-0, –1 pass pro in 15 snaps) should settle into a 3rd down back role—he's a quasi receiver already and the most effective blocker the rare times an RB stays in the backfield for that. Former five-star Ricky Slade (+1/-0 on 4 snaps) appears to be the odd man out. For now Franklin's going to try to keep them all happy until circumstances force him to use Cain.

The receivers are hyper-talented, starting with slot KJ "Speedy Eaglet" Hamler (455 yards, 65% catch rate, 5 TDs, 11.4 YPT, +9/-0, one drop in this game), who is justifying every time we've had to hear Ace bitch in our Slack chat about Michigan not pursuing the slippery local prospect these many years. A lot of the offense goes through him or the tight ends. The #1 is "Baby Gronk" Pat Freiermuth (203 yards, 68% catch rate, "3" but really 4 TDs, 8.1 YPT, +7/-2 as a blocker) a very lengthy New England dude with a nose for the end zone who's maybe another offseason of weights away from Mackey-level. The comparison gets senior TE Nick Bowers (136 yards, 1 TD, 17 YPT, +2.5/-2, –1 pass pro) called a blocker, which is unfair to a 60/40 receiver-type who flexes outside a lot. Shortish sophomore WR Jahan Dotson (261 yards, 67% catch rate, 3 TDs, 12.4 YPT) is effective at finding spots underneath coverage. He's very different from classmate Justin Shorter, the composite 8th overall prospect last year because he's a tight end-sized person with the speed of a 4-star outside prospect. Shorter occasionally lines up as a tight end as well. The backups only get a handful of snaps; Chisema was stolen from the track team.

[after THE JUMP: Happy trails]