Barkley has running start
Penn State back prepares to rise on national stage
STATE COLLEGE, PA. One day after the end of the 2015 season, Charles Huff took out a piece of Penn State stationery and, in dark black ink, scribbled down a number: 2,037.
That number— the Nittany Lions’ season rushing record, set in 2002 by All-America running back Larry Johnson — sits in plain sight on Huff’s desk, in the small space between his keyboard and computer monitor. It jogs his memory every time he logs on, sends an email or posts a tweet.
I have work to do, it says — not in so many words, but that’s what it implies: Huff, the running backs coach, must keep pace with his star pupil, Nittany Lions junior Saquon Barkley.
Barkley has goals: “I want to break records,” he says this spring from a seat inside Penn State’s football offices, hours after another early- morning workout. “One of my goals when I got here was I wanted to break every single running back record before I left this place.”
Barkley needs drills. So Huff will comb through tape: that of NFL teams, of NFL-style drills, of Penn State’s own practices and games, of opponents and rivals.
Barkley is getting better — adding another 5 pounds to his muscular frame since the end of last season; running a blazing, check- your- stopwatch 4.33- second 40- yard dash in a video released by the Nittany Lions this year; and power cleaning 390 pounds, amoment memorialized in a near- viral video, to tie the program’s individual record.
Barkley challenges Huff; in turn, Huff challenges Barkley.
“He wants it all,” Huff says. “So for me as his coach, I can’t come and not have a great day or come and not be prepared. Every single day.”
“I want to be the best player on the team,” Barkley says. “I want to be the best player in the country. When it comes to situations where somebody needs to make a play, I want to be that guy.
“You just put your mind to it and you can do it, but you’ve got to work for it.”
That Barkley is the total package — with “attitude, demeanor, work ethic, leadership, speed, vision, quickness, strength, size,” James Franklin says, listing the junior’s attributes — is known inside the Big Ten, as well as by every opponent on Penn State’s schedule. That Barkley hasn’t registered to the same degree on a national scale “has a lot to do
with the lack of respect Penn State gets as a program,” senior tight end Mike Gesicki says.
“If he’s at Ohio State, people are blowing up; if he’s at Alabama, people are blowing up. But he’s at Penn State.”
That time under the radar will end this fall: Barkley is going national in 2017, as the Nittany Lions’ first legitimate Heisman Trophy contender in more than a decade.
“I’ve been doing this 23 years, college and NFL, and I’ve never had a guy like this,” Franklin says. “There are running backs that are fast. That can make you miss. That are strong. If you came up with a list of traits — like Frankenstein, you’re going to build your running back. I don’t know if there’s a box that’s not checked. The good Lord does not give you everything. Well, in Saquon’s situation, I don’t know if that’s necessarily true.”
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Not every program saw the potential during Barkley’s recruitment — even Penn State was behind the curve, in fact, as the second regional program to offer a scholarship, after Rutgers. There was a reason he was overlooked, relative to his eventual status as a four- star recruit and ensuing collegiate success: Barkley was 5- 6 and less than 160 pounds as a sophomore in high school, when he split time between his school’s junior varsity and varsity teams.
By his junior year, he’d added a few inches of height and roughly 30 pounds. But he didn’t have much game tape to feed recruiters: “Rutgers offered me on potential,” Barkley says. So he committed to the Scarlet Knights and thencoach Kyle Flood before backing off his verbal pledge to join Franklin and Penn State, an agonizing decision that, Barkley says, “was best formy life.”
Even then, Franklin concedes his own staff didn’t immediately see what it had in Barkley: “I didn’t probably realize how good he was and how elite he was until his senior year.” Then, Penn State coaches saw what game film struggles to quantify.
When Barkley attended Penn State’s spring game in 2015, Huff caught the recent signee mirroring the play call from the sideline — taking a jab step here and churning his feet there, imitating his future teammates.
Later that summer, Barkley would pick the brain of then- starting quarterback Christian Hackenberg on a neardaily basis, “almost a pest,” Huff says, in his quest to learn the entire gamut of the playbook. It worked: Months later, Barkley would set the program’s season rushing record for a freshman.
HIGH EXPECTATIONS
Bakley wants to break records, and, barring injury, he will do just that. He wants to lead Penn State to another Big Ten championship and Rose Bowl berth. He wants to win a national title. But what about the Heisman? Four running backs finished in the top 10 of Heisman voting in December; all four have since graduated or departed for the NFL, leaving Barkley as perhaps college football’s most productive and recognizable running back entering the 2017 season.
And it’s no coincidence that Barkley’s development into an All- America contender mirrors Penn State’s return to national relevance — even if that tends to minimize the number of other factors behind the program’s recent rise, including annual recruiting successes, fellow junior Trace McSorley’s development into an all- conference quarterback and Franklin’s decision to hire former Fordham coach Joe Moorhead as offensive coordinator before last season.
All eyes will be on Penn State in 2017. In turn, Barkley’s stretch as an overlooked All- America contender will be replaced by weekly updates on his numbers alongside the team’s push for another conference championship.
“I want to leave here as the all- time leading rusher in almost everything,” he says. “I’ve got a Big Ten championship already. Wouldn’t be bad if I got another one. And to get a national championship?”
The question lingered and went unanswered. To win a national title? That would be something. It also would mean something: Title contention for Penn State would place Barkley deep in the Heisman mix. But there are photographers downstairs in Penn State’s football facility, and Barkley needs to change into his uniform. It’s time for his cover shot.