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Somehow, Saquon Barkley exceeded expectations in Penn State’s win over Akron

Dustin Schutte

By Dustin Schutte

Published:

Saquon Barkley was the hottest name in college football all throughout the offseason. The Heisman hype, the All-B1G and All-American honors filed in from every direction. Everyone knew the Penn State running back was in store for a special season.

And yet, he still exceeded the highest of expectations right out of the gate.

Barkley had rushes for 25, 30, and 80 yards in the game. He was a weapon as a rusher, receiver and a pass-blocker. Saturday reinforced the belief that there’s nothing Penn State’s star running back can’t do.

Go ahead and denounce Barkley’s performance to playing a weak, middling MAC defense. Make the typical “we’ll see what he can do against a B1G defense,” comment. If that’s your mindset, that’s fine.

But rushing for 145 yards and two touchdowns on nine carries in one half isn’t something to scoff at, regardless of opponent. Accounting for 226 total yards – which was nearly 40 percent of Penn State’s offense – is worth more than just a “ho-hum.”

It wasn’t just the numbers that were impressive, though. Barkley’s field vision and ability to find a sliver of open space is indescribable. And he’s got a knack to turn nothing into something unlike any other player in college football.

When Barkley wasn’t finding gaping holes in Akron’s defense, he was shaking and sidestepping potential tacklers. The examples in Saturday’s game were endless.

https://twitter.com/DownWithDamon/status/904031097989718016

There are already a handful of other videos out there, and this is just the first week of the season.

Coming into the season, some argued that Barkley might not be a Heisman Trophy contender. With so many weapons on the Penn State offense, the Barkley might not see the number of touches essential to win college football’s most prestigious award.

Barkley had just 17 touches on Saturday and still accounted for a large chunk of the Nittany Lions offense. He doesn’t need a lot of carries to make a significant impact. In case you didn’t already know that, it became evident with his performance against Akron.

Life gets immediately tougher for Penn State next week. Barkley probably isn’t going to see the same wide gaps in Pitt’s defense as he saw against the Zips. But his ability to find running room isn’t what stood out in the season opener, it was the ability to create running room.

The bar was set incredibly high for Barkley coming into the year. This is only Week 1, and not overreacting to such an outstanding performance is a difficult thing to do. But Barkley already looks bigger, stronger and faster than he did last fall.

That’s something not many people believed was possible.

Dustin Schutte

Dustin grew up in the heart of Big Ten country and has been in sports media since 2010. He has been covering Big Ten football since 2014. You can follow him on Twitter: @SchutteCFB