master teague

We're back for Part II of our The Enemy, Ranked series. Last week we covered quarterbacks and today we're handling the running backs. The Big Ten has a lot of shuffling at the running back position this year, and because of the way that college football has progressed, most teams enter the season with a committee of backs and the workload for each is yet to be determined. Michigan is much like the rest of the conference in that way, with several compelling names, but uncertainty regarding the pecking order. I set out to rank each team based on the positional group, so the quality of names at the top, as well as the depth/amount of names play a big role here. If a team doesn't have a returning starter, I defer to the program's track record at developing quality players at that position, as well as recruiting profiles, just as I did in the quarterbacks piece. 

1. Penn State

Few teams in the country have five different running backs who all have 50+ career carries to their name AND have maintained >4.0 YPC for their career. Penn State is one of those teams. The Nittany Lions enter this season with five viable players at the running back position, all of could may see substantial work this season. First up is Noah Cain, a former top 100 recruit from the 2019 class who played second fiddle to the electric Journey Brown back in 2019. Cain seemed to be in line to be the #1 back last season after Journey Brown was forced to tragically retire from football due to a heart condition, but a leg injury sustained in the first series of the season opener against Indiana in week one ended his season. That was a shame, because Cain looked primed to be a breakout name nationally after rushing for 443 yards (5.3 YPC) as a true freshman in '19, setting PSU's program record for TD's by a freshman with 8. His 2019 campaign included one of the best grades ever handed out to a running back in MGoBlog's history, when Seth lavished praise on Cain ahead of that season's Michigan/PSU duel in Happy Valley. You can go back and read that FFFF to get a sense of how good Cain could be, now in his 3rd year in the program. Though the awaited breakout year may have had to wait a season, it could very easily transpire this fall. Cain is back from injury and sits atop the depth chart. 

Cain alone would put the Nittany Lions in conversation for a spot towards the top of this list, but what solidifies PSU at #1 is the absurd glut of options behind Noah Cain. With both Cain and Brown out for the what was nearly the entirety of last season, it fell on the shoulders of Keyvone Lee, Caziah Holmes, and Devyn Ford to pick up the slack, and they did a solid job of that. Lee was the "starter" last season, with 4.9 YPC on 89 carries last season + 4 scores, while adding 12 catches too, doing it as a true freshman. He could very easily best Cain to become the #1 back. Holmes was also a true freshman last fall and rushed for 4.5 YPC on 51 carries and added two touchdowns. Ford has 119 carries over two seasons in State College, with a career 4.8 YPC, six touchdowns, and twelve catches. All of these guys would be good backups to Cain on their own, but the fact there are three of them is absurd. And then, because I guess James Franklin only buys products in bulk, PSU landed a highly experienced grad transfer RB in John Lovett from Baylor. Lovett was a multi-year starter with the Bears, boasting 355 career carries and a 5.1 YPC clip to go with it + 29 catches and 17 career TD's. 

I really have no idea how all five of these RB's are going to be able to play each week, and they're all good enough that they deserve to be on the field. In all likelihood, this position group will closely resemble tossing a single Slim Jim to a pack of five hungry dogs and watching them fight it out. Someone's going to get squeezed out and I'd be shocked if PSU ended the season without at least one guy entering the portal. That said, having five quality, experienced RB options is not a bad thing at all, and it will allow the Nittany Lions to sustain potentially multiple injuries and make it out alright on the ground, as they did last season. This group will need better OL play to improve on some of their stat lines last season, but if you're a Penn State fan, RB should be the least of your worries going into 2021. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: More running backs by committees]

Previously: Quarterback

I'm bringing back this preview feature from before my time off; the exercise is to rank Michigan's opponents, as well as the Wolverines themselves, in each position group. This is particularly useful to do in a year when roster turnover and late-offseason changes (laaaaaaaaaaaaaate-offseason changes) are so prevalent; I'll do my best in these posts to highlight significant opt-outs, opt-ins, and the like.

As with quarterback, running back is a position of strength among most of the teams on Michigan's schedule. While there isn't a Jonathan Taylor or JK Dobbins established superstar on the slate, there's plenty of talent ready to break out, along with several backs who've already proven they can produce in the Big Ten. Every team has either a returning starter or a former four-star recruit in the mix to take over.

Projected starter is in bold, backups in italics.

Tier I: High-End Rotations

Journey Brown leads one of the nation's deepest backfields [Barron]

1. Penn State. This might be the most loaded backfield outside of Tuscaloosa. It took a while for PSU to land on their preferred rotation last year, and in cycling through the options they turned up a potential first-round pick at the position and two additional excellent backs.

Redshirt junior Journey Brown, a compact speedster with wiggle that defies the "former track star" label, emerged midseason as the top option, rushing for 890 yards and 12 touchdowns on only 129 carries—a 6.9 YPC average and score nearly every ten rushes despite few stat-padding opportunities against bad competition. He's ranked as high as a top-three prospect at the position for the 2021 NFL Draft; Mel Kiper has him only behind Clemson's Travis Etienne and Oklahoma State's Chuba Hubbard among draft-eligible RBs.

Sophomores Noah Cain and Devyn Ford both easily cracked five YPC in their debut seasons. Cain looked to seize the lead role in the rotation after back-to-back 100-yard performances against Purdue and Iowa before a leg injury suffered a couple weeks later derailed the latter half of his regular season. He bounced back with 92 yards against Memphis in the Cotton Bowl.

Ford, a former top-100 recruit, could be the odd man out; he did a lot of his damage in the opener against Idaho and didn't top seven carries in a game, then got charged with marijuana possession in what sounds like a comical arrest over the offseason:

Three Penn State football players were charged Monday after university police officers said they found marijuana and LSD in the trio’s on-campus apartment.

Officers responded about 3:40 p.m. Aug. 2 to sophomore running back Devyn Ford and redshirt freshman offensive linemen Sal Wormley and Caedan Wallace’s apartment for a fire alarm, Penn State police wrote in an affidavit of probable cause filed Monday.

Police found marijuana “all over the floor” and detected a “very potent” smell of burned weed coming from the apartment, an officer wrote.

The charge itself isn't a big deal but Ford was already behind Brown and Cain before giving the coaches fair reason to doubt his judgment. PSU also added a pair of four-star backs in the 2020 class, Caziah Holmes and Keyvone Lee. Former five-star Ricky Slade transferred in the offseason because he wasn't seeing much opportunity. Again: loaded.

[Hit THE JUMP for... good rivalry news? Good rivalry news!]