By Alex Kurtz, Sports Editor
“You think he’s the real deal?” Nick Forbes asks as he casually eats a chicken tender from Benny’s before our general staff meeting for The Quill on Tuesdays.
“I’ll put it this way, I haven’t seen a college running back cut like that since Reggie Bush, and he can power clean 405 pounds. His speed and size is freakish. He’s special,” I said.
This conversation was right before the start of Saquon Barkley’s sophomore season, and well before Penn State was on anyone’s radar. They were 7-6 the year before, coach James Franklin was on the hot seat, and they lost starting QB Christian Hackenberg to the NFL draft.
Barkley, on the other hand, was coming off of a succesful freshman campaign where he rushed for over 1000 yards and he remained one of the few bright spots on a team with a coach on the hot seat, no stability on the offensive line and at quarterback with unproven Trace McSorley taking over the at the helm.
Fast forward a year later and Penn State is now the defending Big 10 champions, is now number two in the country, and hosting Michigan. Penn State was also featured on College Gameday this week with Barkley currently the front-runner to win the coveted Heisman Trophy.
While I saw this coming, not many other people did unless you watched the abysmal trainwreck that was the Nittany Lions during Barkley’s freshman year.
His size and speed are unlike any back to come out in years, and if you ask people whose even a close comparison, they struggle to find one.
Barkley’s stats, other than all-purpose yards where he is first in the FBS, are good but not standout, but stats do not come close to telling the absolute full story of the now- junior running back. Watch him on any given Saturday and you will see at least one or two plays that will make you sit back and say “Wow, this kid is really special.”
Barkley is a once in a generation player, and I plead with you to go watch him play against Michigan this weekend. You will not regret it. There is a reason he is the front runner for the Heisman, and that reason is because he is the best running back in college football.
