Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1276571
JUST GETTING WARMED UP R U N N I N G B A C K S Journey Brown enjoyed a breakthrough season last fall, but after a confidence-boosting bowl game and months of hard work in the weight room, the best may be yet to come here's a famous scene in one of the "Matrix" se- quels in which the movies' hero, Neo, is con- fronted by his nemesis, Agent Smith, in a vacant plaza at the foot of some high-rise apartment build- ings. Because the whole thing is actually part of an elaborate computer simulation, Agent Smith is able to duplicate himself at will. Soon there are a couple of Agent Smiths, then a dozen, then a hundred. They come rushing at Neo in waves, but he fends them all off with a series of absurdly athletic self-defense moves, flinging some out of his way, knocking others to the ground like bowling pins and leaving the rest grasping at air. By the end of the scene, he's made his escape, ascending into the stratosphere superhero- style as the Agent Smiths look at each other per- plexed, wondering what hit them. That's pretty much how the Cotton Bowl went for Journey Brown last December. The speedy redshirt sophomore absolutely wrecked Memphis, rushing for 202 yards and averaging 12.6 yards per carry in Penn State's 53-39 victory. No Nittany Lion running back had ever done better in a postseason game, and there have been some pretty good Nittany Lion running backs over the years. But it wasn't just the numbers that impressed; it was the way in which Brown compiled them. Tacklers just sort of bounced off him. When they got in his way, he shrugged them off, or stiff- armed them, or dragged them forward for extra yardage. And when they didn't get in his way, when he managed to find some open field, he was uncatchable. One carry in particular seemed to sum up Brown's afternoon. After taking the hand- off deep in the backfield, he burst through a hole that guard Steven Gonzalez and center Michal Menet had opened up, slipped out of an attempted tackle just be- yond the line of scrimmage, careened off of a second tackler a few yards later, pushed away a third tackler who had latched onto his left arm and was trying to drag him to the turf, then carried a fourth tackler into the end zone after the desperate Tiger defender had jumped on his back at the 4-yard line. Brown's 32-yard touchdown run early in the first quarter set the tone for the rest of the game, and it may also have done something even more significant: Coming on the heels of a regular-season surge in which he lit up Minnesota, Indiana, Rutgers and even Ohio State for a couple of quarters, the run may have set the tone for the rest of his Nittany Lion career. "You feel like he can do it against anybody," running backs coach Ja'Juan Seider said. "In the Minnesota game, he played his tail off. And then what he did at Ohio State in the second half was probably as impres- sive as anybody in the country. I'll say this: In the last four or five games – and I know I'm biased – I thought Journey Brown was playing as good as any running back in the country. He's got freakish ath- letic ability and strength that he finally started tapping into." When he came to University Park in the Class of 2017, Brown was known best as a record-breaking high school sprinter. Despite compiling eye-popping numbers as a Wing-T tailback at Meadville (Pa.) High, he was regarded by the recruiting experts as a bit of a reach, a prospect who would need to add a few more tools to his | 4 ON THE FLOOR Brown had the best game of his college career in Penn State's Cotton Bowl vic- tory over Mem- phis, rushing for 202 yards and two touch- downs. Photo by Steve Manuel T >>