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QUOTABLE Franklin: "I think in general, we've got to be better in the passing game and we've got to be able to push the ball down the field. We've got to be more ef- ficient and more explosive in the passing game. … We've got to mix the pass in with Will. Will is doing a really good job in helping us in short-yardage situations or four-minute offense, which is a big part of how we wanted to use him. But we also want to be able to mix some of those other things in there, because he's shown that he can do it and he deserves it." RUNNING BACK KEY RETURNEES Noah Cain, Devyn Ford, Caziah Holmes, Keyvone Lee KEY LOSS Journey Brown NEWCOMER John Lovett OUTLOOK Things could not have gone much worse at this position group in 2020, at least initially. The Nittany Lions lost a potential All-America candidate in the preseason when Brown was diag- nosed with a heart ailment that eventu- ally forced him to retire from the sport. Then, during the first series of their opening game, they lost Cain to a season- ending foot injury. That left Ford and true freshmen Holmes and Lee, and Ford ended up missing nearly four full games for health and personal reasons. The good news for the Lions is that those freshmen rose to the occasion, par- ticularly Lee. The 6-foot-0, 230- pounder finished his debut season as Penn State's leading rusher with 438 yards and four touchdowns on 89 carries. He had the team's top rushing perform- ance of the season, carrying 22 times for 134 yards and a touchdown at Michigan, an effort that won him Big Ten Freshman of the Week honors. A summer arrival, Lee did all that without getting to spend a full off-season in a college weight room. Now, he'll have that opportunity, and it will be interesting to see how much of a difference it makes for him heading into year two. Holmes ranked third in rushing among the running backs, fin- ishing with 227 yards on 51 carries. He enjoyed his best day of the year in the Nittany Lions' sea- son finale, gaining 77 yards and scoring two TDs on 12 carries in the victory over Illinois. After Cain got hurt, Ford started five games and finished with 274 rushing yards and three scores. But he missed the team's last two games for undisclosed reasons. So now the coaching staff has some de- cisions to make. Lee was the Lions' most reliable rushing threat this past fall, but the depth chart appears stacked, with Ford and Holmes both returning, Cain looking to come back from his injury and Lovett joining the competition as a trans- fer after rushing for 1,803 yards and 17 touchdowns in four seasons at Baylor. Cain may be the most intriguing of Penn State's five scholarship running backs. He showed flashes of potential in 2019, gaining 443 yards and scoring eight rushing touchdowns to set a PSU fresh- man record. But he's now missed 11 games in his short career due to injuries. He'll have nearly a full year to rehab from his injury against Indiana. Will that be enough time for him to get healthy and fulfill his potential in his third season with the Nittany Lions? QUOTABLE Franklin on Lee: "He's a 230- pound guy with good feet. He's got really good vision, and the other thing – it's a subtle thing but matters – is that he's al- ways falling forward. I think that's some- thing that a lot of the time goes unnoticed. When you can always fall for- ward, you're talking about another yard- and-a-half or two yards on every run. "We've needed the ability to be able to grind things out. We haven't had the abil- ity to make the free guy miss and go 80. DUAL THREAT Clifford was Penn State's sec- ond-leading rusher in 2020, gaining 335 yards on 99 car- ries. Photo cour- tesy of Penn State Athletics

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