Penn State prepares for life after Barkley
Offensive spotlight shifts to quarterback McSorley with three in RB rotation
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — List out the top programs in the country, asks James Franklin.
OK, Alabama.
“Do they have good players?” the Penn State football coach poses, and the question is rhetorical. Yes, of course.
“Clemson?” The Tigers also have a number of good players, several along their defensive line.
“I guess that’s my point,” Franklin told USA TODAY. “When we’ve had success, it’s because of this or because of that. Well, all those programs have great players. All those programs have great coaches. All those programs have great facilities. So don’t cheapen what we’ve done because we had a great player.”
That player is running back Saquon Barkley, the face of the program for the past two seasons and now, amid huge fanfare, a young star for the NFL’s Giants. Ask around about Penn State in 2018 and you’ll invariably get some variation on the same response: The Nittany Lions will be pretty good, but Barkley will be impossible to replace.
That might be true — on an individual level, at least, Barkley’s talents appear once in a decade, if not with even greater infrequency. But even as his former coaches and teammates marvel at Barkley’s impact across three seasons, the Nittany Lions object to the idea that one single player was singularly responsible for the program’s back-to-back New Year’s Six bowl appearances.
“We give him all the credit for everything he’s done for this program,” senior cornerback Amani Oruwariye said. “But that’s just kind of something that outsiders really won’t understand, that we kind of have a standard here for how we do things and what’s expected and required.
“We have a next-man-up mentality.
“Miles has definitely been taking that next step to be that feature back. I think he’s going to have an incredible year.”
Amani Oruwariye Penn State cornerback, on running back Miles Sanders
So congrats to him for everything, but we need the next man to step up and help us be the best team we can be.”
The next-man-up mind-set fits, even if it might take three bodies to match Barkley’s production. The starter will be junior Miles Sanders, who averaged 6.16 yards per rush across 31 carries in 2017. In Penn State’s rotation, Sanders will be followed by senior Mark Allen, who brings 254 career rushing yards into his final season, and true freshman Ricky Slade, one of the top prospects at his position in the most recent recruiting class.
“Miles has definitely been taking that next step to be that feature back,” Oruwariye said. “I think he’s going to have an incredible year. Mark’s been complimenting him really well. And Slade’s come in as a freshman and really opened some eyes.”
The full weight of the Nittany Lions offense now falls on the shoulders of senior quarterback Trace McSorley, a leading Heisman Trophy candidate heading into the regular season.
McSorley accounted for 39 touchdowns in 2017 while leading Big Ten Conference quarterbacks in completion percentage, passing yards and yards per attempt.
Barkley’s absence hasn’t changed the program’s outlook: Penn State’s fortunes might still hinge in large part on the performance of a single player — McSorley, now entering his third year as the starter — but the Nittany Lions are ignoring the outside perception that any team that loses a top-five talent is destined to undergo a dip in production.
“People always kind of look past us,” senior linebacker Koa Farmer said. “For me, for this team, I think if we go out to prove and to get respect then I wouldn’t want it any other way.”