Penn State RBs coach Ja'Juan Seider: Iowa, Illinois games would be 'different story' with healthy Sean Clifford

Closing out his Zoom call with the media on Thursday afternoon, Penn State running backs coach Ja’Juan Seider got real.

Seider, responding to a question about the impact of Penn State’s current three-game losing streak on recruiting efforts, said he feels the Nittany Lions would be in a different position had it not been for an injury suffered by quarterback Sean Clifford against Iowa.

“The kids watch football,” Seider said. “They know who we are, they see a good football team that fought hard last week and had a chance to win. They know what happened in the Iowa game.

“I mean, let’s be honest, man. Call a spade a spade. A healthy Sean Clifford in that Iowa game and Illinois game, it’s a different story, right? I know people don’t wanna hear that, but it’s the freakin’ truth and I’ll stick to it.”

Penn State’s struggling run game

Those games also could have turned out differently, Seider acknowledged, had Penn State’s running game been more effective.

That’s a season long problem that, with four games remaining, the Nittany Lions still haven’t resolved.

Penn State has failed to surpass the 100-yard rushing mark in five of its eight games so far this season. The Nittany Lions fell short of that benchmark six times in the previous three seasons combined.

So, what’s the issue? Seider was asked how much of the blame falls at the feet of Penn State’s running back corps.

“It’s the whole team,” he said. “It’s all of us on offense, man — coaches, players, all of us.

“A lot of it is we play really good defenses. A lot of it has schematically changed a little bit.”

Seider touched on a few of those schematic factors. Early in the season, he said, Penn State’s offense developed a tendency to play lateral rather than vertical due to the tempo it was running, he said. That had a negative impact on run blocking.

He also pointed out that defenses continue to stack the box to stop the run game based on Penn State’s success running the ball last year. Finally, he explained that the offense is encountering a variety of changing defensive fronts which provide challenges.

“It’s something that we’re very aware of, just like everybody else,” he said. “We are working diligently to try to get this thing turned.”

Looking for small improvements

Rather than dwelling on the frustration that has surrounded the Penn State running game to this point in the season, Seider says he and the rest of the coaches are just looking for small improvements wherever they can be found.

Both he and James Franklin sounded an optimistic note this week over what the Nittany Lions did in the run game against Ohio State. Penn State used the run game effectively in short yardage situations — a rare feat this season.

The box score, though, remained ugly. Even adjusting for sack yardage, Penn State managed only 2.28 yards per carry in that game.

“This thing is going to turn,” Seider said. “And when it turns, man, we’re going to really take off.”

To make that happen, Seider is seeking out those little improvements.

He’s trying to show Noah Cain that he doesn’t need to be a superhero, that playing like himself is sufficient to get results. He sees Keyvone Lee making forward strides as the sophomore learns the nuances of the game.

Seider knows, too, that the Nittany Lions need to be more explosive.

“We haven’t had enough runs that got to the safeties,” he said. “…In the running back room, we have 10 explosive runs, which is 12 yards or more. That’s not good. That’s not the standard that we hold up here. We’ve had games where we had more than that in the past.”