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ings and on-field instruction into the 12 hours per week that the NCAA allowed the teams that weren't playing this fall. Even after Slade's off-season transfer, the running backs room is crowded thanks to the addition of Keyvone Lee and Caziah Holmes in the Class of 2020. But Cain hopes the equilibrium that allowed for both team and personal success last year continues into this coming season. He said the "million dollar question" of how to keep every running back happy can be answered by keeping the pressure high. "I feel like Coach Seider does a great job with understanding everybody's role that they contribute. He tells us before the game, whoever gets hot, gets hot. It is what it is. If this dude gets hot, keep them in. If you're messing up, you're out. Sim- ple as that," Cain said. "I think the ap- proach that Coach Seider has for us, it's only going to help us get better, for the [NFL] as well. The league is very cut- throat, and the way Coach Seider coaches us, it's like, 'I'm trying to find somebody to replace you. If you're not doing your job, there's somebody else that can do your job.' "It's all coming from love and coming from a perspective of wanting to see us be so great that he doesn't want us to get comfortable. I think that keeps all of us on our toes to keep performing every week and keep going hard." Challenged by that practice environ- ment and determined to continue the progress he already started in his short career as a Nittany Lion, Cain believes even greater possibilities lie ahead. "I feel I understand the game better, more than I ever have before. It's just sort of slowing down to me," he said. "With the new offense we're learning, that's just another learning curve, learning Coach [Kirk] Ciarrocca's new language and his style of play and how he wants us to run the ball and catch the ball out of the back- field. It's a learning curve, but at the same time, I feel like this new offense that we're coming into, it is going to benefit the run game, benefit all of us in the backfield. I'm excited just to have a year under my belt." ■ LEARNING CURVE A disappointing afternoon at Minnesota set the stage for Sean Clifford's productive off-season | F or all of 256 days, Sean Cli8ord locked in with unwavering focus. Following a spring in which he had competed with 79h- year senior Tommy Stevens for a shot at Penn State's starting quarterback job ahead of the 2019 season, Cli8ord's reality changed suddenly and dramatically when Stevens put his name into the NCAA's trans- fer portal on April 18. Cli8ord was, without warning, the winner of the competition and the Nittany Lions' starting quarterback in just his third year in the program. So he went to work, kept at it, and looked up only a9er his Nittany Lions had 7nished with an 11-2 record and a Cot- ton Bowl victory in his debut season at the helm. "There were points in the season where I just felt like a complete robot, which hon- CHASED DOWN Clifford threw for 340 yards and a touch- down against the Gophers last November but wasn't able to engineer a comeback vic- tory. Photo by Steve Manuel

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