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P enn State went into preseason camp believing that it had one of the country's top running back tandems in Journey Brown and Noah Cain. Brown is now out of action inde9- nitely with an undisclosed health prob- lem, while Cain was injured in the season opener at Indiana. But they both have years of eligibility remaining and may yet team up to spearhead the Penn State run- ning game. If so, fans can only hope they will be as successful as several of the run- ning back duos of the past. Selecting those all-time tandems may seem easy as long as you stick to the Pa- terno-O'Brien-Franklin coaching years. Historians who delve back to the start of Penn State football in 1887 make the choices more convoluted for most mod- ern day Nittany Lion fans. Take Carl Forkum and Irish McIlveen from the 1902-04 teams or Pete Mauthe and Shorty Miller from 1911-12. Then there is the quartet that made up the running back combination from 1919 to 1922: Hinkey Haines, Charlie Way, Glenn Killinger and Harry Wilson. Killinger and Wilson are in the College Football Hall of Fame along with Mauthe and Miller. Nowadays, they are all like di- nosaurs from an ancient time. Except for most of the de-emphasis and purity years from 1927 to the 1949 season, there have been many outstanding run- ning back tandems in Penn State's his- tory. Among the most familiar for longtime Nittany Lion fans are Lydell Mitchell/Franco Harris, Mike Guman/ Matt Suhey, D.J. Dozier/Blair Thomas and Ki-Jana Carter/Mike Archie None of the outstanding tandems can be assessed equitably without consider- ing a variety of factors. Football rules and o:ensive formations have continually changed over the decades. At one time, it was strictly a smashmouth game with no passing. The single-wing was the domi- nant formation into the late 1940s, with the four backs lined up a yard or so be- hind the front line and the quarterback serving as a blocking back who called the signals. Although o:ensive systems in which the quarterback takes the snap from under center can be traced back to football patriarch Walter Camp in the late 1890s, it wasn't until the 1940s that the T-formation came back into vogue. Coach Rip Engle brought his own wing-T to Penn State in 1950, and the basic T- formation subsequently gave way to the shotgun and spread in the early 2000s, with quarterbacks no longer under cen- ter. Then came the di:erent versions of the run-pass option, in which even full- backs became passe, turning quarterback Trace McSorley into a Nittany Lion idol. For many years, the rules mandated that players had to stay on the 9eld and play both o:ense and defense, like my running back dinosaurs. Then came the confusing substitution rules of the 1950s and early '60s, causing chaos until the most conse- quential change of the 20th century in 1965. That was the unlimited substitution rule that created specialists of all kinds, not only for o:ense and defense, but for place kicking, kicko:s and punting, too. My favorite is the long snapper, because I was once a mediocre high school center. Gregg Truitt is my long snapper idol. Who is he, you ask? Truitt was a reserve strong safety and fullback who was the long snapper for John Bruno's great punts that helped win the 1986 national cham- pionship. A;er graduation, he went to work for a Marriott hotel in Miami, learned more about long snapping and in 1994 signed on with the Cincinnati Ben- gals for what became a six-year long- snapping career in the NFL. My list of Penn State's outstanding running back tandems is based solely on what they did in college, although many had 9ne pro careers. The prime criteria are what they accomplished during the season (or seasons) when they were teammates. That's why I include all those players before the Paterno era began in 1966. In considering all of Penn State's 45 career rushing leaders cited in the foot- ball media guide, I could not choose cer- tain players who were singular success stories. Tony Hunt, for example, is not on my list even though he is ranked fourth in career rushing and was a big reason for the resurrection of Penn State football in the 2005 season. Hunt didn't have a teammate who received a signi9cant per- centage of the carries, so the Lions didn't really have a tandem at that time. Readers may disagree with my selec- tions and also quickly point out other tandems I have missed. But no one can be perfect in such an endeavor. So, let the arguments begin. I'll do this chronologically, saving my pre-1950 dinosaurs for last and starting with the most underrated of all of Joe Paterno's tandems. BOB CAMPBELL CHARLIE PITTMAN 1967-68 These were the 9rst great backs of the Paterno era. When Campbell graduated a;er helping lead Paterno's 9rst unde- feated team in 1968 to Penn State's high- est-ever ranking in the season-ending national polls at No. 2, he was fourth in career rushing. An injury early in Pa- TWO OF A KIND The Nittany Lions have frequently featured more than one great RB in their backfield >>

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