Blue White Illustrated

As with any problem that occurs in an 11-man game, the solution requires a level of teamwork that involves more than just the position group in question. For the running backs to succeed, the offensive line has to consistently win its battles up front. That's not happened with any fre- quency this season, and the Lions were still trying different combinations four weeks into the season. Following a 35-19 loss to Maryland, in which Penn State ran for 94 yards against a Terrapins team that had gone into the game ranked last in the Big Ten in rushing defense, Franklin took inventory of the team's problems on the ground. "We weren't sustaining blocks, we haven't been able to break tackles consistently and make people miss consistently," he said. "It's been similar for the first couple of weeks. We're not getting a consistent push, we're not sustaining blocks, and then obviously we're not breaking tackles and making people miss, and we're not able to put people in conflict with the RPO stuff because there's not enough re- spect and concern for the running game right now." One of the difficulties this season, Franklin said, is that the team has been A few months ago, Devyn Ford seemed certain to be a complementary player in Penn State's rushing attack, not the go-to guy. He was behind Journey Brown and classmate Noah Cain, and even on a team that likes to spread out the work- load, the sophomore running back fig- ured to get roughly the same four to five car- ries per game that he got last year as a true freshman. But in September, doctors discovered that Brown had a heart condition that required him to sit out. Then, only a few plays into the first offensive series of Penn State's opener at Indiana, Cain suffered a season-ending injury. Just like that, Ford was the go-to guy. It was a stunning turn of events, but running backs coach Ja'Juan Seider urges all of his players to prepare as if they're going to start, and that mentality helped Ford adjust to a much more prominent role than he had expected. "It definitely took a second to realize what was going on, taking everything in," Ford said, reflecting back on the In- diana game. "It was a shock at first. I was just playing the game, then after the game you see what happens and think about it and you're like, well, everything happens for a reason. I wish it didn't happen, but when it happens that way, you have to step up into the position and take on that role and carry on with everything. The mentality is that you have to be able to take it on like a starter, like you've been preparing the whole time. Nothing really changes with the mindset of how I prepare." Through five games, Ford had amassed 209 yards on 56 carries, averaging 3.7 yards per attempt, with two touch- downs. He had a season-high 69 yards in the opener at Indiana and 66 against Nebraska, but he was injured early in the game against Iowa on Nov. 21, and his status going forward was unclear as of this writing. Even before getting hurt, this season wasn't exactly a joyride for Ford, a for- mer Rivals.com four-star prospect from Stafford, Va. The Nittany Lions have found themselves slogging through the roughest start in school history, and an up-and-down ground game has been a big part of their struggles. The Lions came alive at Nebraska, producing 245 rushing yards in a narrow loss. But a week earlier against Maryland, they managed only 94 rushing yards against a Terrapins team that had gone into the game giving up nearly 300 yards per game on the ground. Also, Ford was at the center of a play that seemed to sum up the snakebit na- ture of Penn State's 2020 season. Late in the game against Indiana, he scored a 14-yard touchdown that the Lions didn't want. With the Hoosiers' defense mak- ing little effort to stop him, he crossed the goal line for a score that gave Penn State an eight-point lead but also gave the ball back to the Indiana offense with enough time left to send the game to overtime. The Hoosiers did just that, and they eventually won it in OT. Ford declined to revisit that moment during his first media availability of the regular season, saying only that Seider and head coach James Franklin had helped him rebound. Seider took responsibility for the mix- up and lauded the resilience that Ford displayed in the weeks that followed. "I blame myself. I would never put a kid under the bus," Seider said. "We were in a situation, and you talk through it, you work on it throughout the week. Maybe I could have gone into more detail on what should have happened, but it did [happen]. "Like in life, you can't dwell on what happened yesterday. It's time to move forward, and he's done a great job of that. We tell them to block out the noise, block out social media, because the same people who are patting you on the back are going to be tearing you down the next day. If you live on social media, you've got to handle the highs and lows of it. I thought he did a great job of tun- ing that out and focusing on the next week." –M.H. Ford adapts to new role in Nittany Lions' backfield FORD

• Cover