Blue White Illustrated

I f this were a normal year, Penn State's spring practice sessions would have just concluded with the playing of the Blue-White Game. I would be analyzing what took place throughout the spring and then making some choices about the players who I believe are poised for breakout seasons on o;ense and de- fense. But this isn't a normal year. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the only event I had to look forward to on April 18 was the Blue-White Virtual Tailgate, an online gathering put together by Penn State's athletic department in lieu of the spring game, which had been cancelled a month earlier. As has been the case for all media members, my only contact with the Penn State football program this spring has consisted of Zoom conference calls with James Franklin and a number of his assistant coaches. But even though or- ganized team activities have been tem- porarily suspended, there's plenty of information available with which to make some educated picks as to who the Nittany Lions' rising stars will be when football resumes. On o;ense, two players have caught my attention in recent months: running back Journey Brown and le< tackle Rasheed Walker. I'm sure some readers will take issue with my choice of Brown on the grounds that he already had his breakout per- formance during the second half of the 2019 season. It's a fair point. In Penn State's :nal :ve games last year, he rushed for 600 yards on 78 carries, av- eraging 7.7 yards per carry, with nine rushing touchdowns. He enjoyed a spec- tacular day in the Cotton Bowl, rushing for 202 yards and two TDs on only 16 carries (12.6 ypc). But as great as Brown was at the end of last season, I think he can be even better and more consistent when he resumes his career. That's because he had an ex- cellent winter in the weight room, bulk- ing up to 216 pounds. That extra muscle doesn't :gure to diminish his sprinter's speed, which means he could be poised for an outstanding 2020 season. In the Big Ten, I see only three return- ing running backs who can come close to matching Brown's potential: Min- nesota's Mohamed Ibrahim, Indiana's Stevie Scott and Ohio State's Master Teague. All three will be juniors, but in my mind, they don't come close to matching Brown's physical size and ex- plosive speed. In fact, I think he could be one of the most explosive running backs in all of college football next sea- son. Running backs coach Ja'Juan Seider said recently that Brown's eye-opening performance in the Cotton Bowl set the stage for even bigger things entering his junior campaign. "The thing that I was so impressed with in the bowl game [was that he started] to play as fast as he is," Seider said. "I thought he :nally started to [translate] his track speed to football. "The way he separated on that one [56-yard] run, I mean, 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 win- ter conditioning." Brown will anchor a back:eld that several analysts have labeled the best in the Big Ten and quite possibly one of the top units in the country. In addition to Brown, it will feature sophomores Noah Cain and Devyn Ford and freshmen Caziah Holmes and Keyvone Lee. I believe that Cain will be one of the top sophomore running backs in the country for the upcoming season. A

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