There isn’t a player Joe Moorhead has been asked about more than Saquon Barkley. The questions aren’t always necessarily football related. Many surround something more basic: “What’s he like?” There’s power in Barkley’s name, his image and, of course, his ability. To know him is to know greatness in its most humble form. Moorhead, his Penn State offensive coordinator, can only say so much.
“Those things come around about once every 76 years,” Moorhead tells his players at Akron, like a grandfather reciting a glorious tale to a fascinated group of grandchildren. “And when you get a chance to see them, you better step back and be in awe and appreciate the moment, because it’s not going to come around again in a very long time.”
Barkley shares the traits of some of the most gifted athletes in professional sports history. Michael Jordan. Kobe Bryant. Tom Brady. But it’s Barkley’s humility that sets him apart. The impossible for most is routine for him. And Barkley isn’t one to boast. He expects all who know him to strive for the same excellence that he unknowingly achieves every day.
The Philadelphia Eagles might not have been in Sunday’s Super Bowl if not for Barkley. He won’t admit to that, but his coaches will. His teammates, past and present, will. “I could spend the rest of this press conference talking about what Saquon’s meant to this football team and not even talk about anything on the field,” Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni said Wednesday.
Barkley is the easiest subject for his companions to speak highly of. What else but positive things can be said for the running back who hurdles opponents backwards? Who makes time for everyone? Who treats every being with the utmost respect? Barkley is the ultimate competitor and more, and his former Nittany Lion teammates know that better than almost anyone.
“Things happen with him and he doesn’t expect it from himself, but he talks about it like it’s just normal,” former Penn State quarterback Trace McSorley told StateCollege.com. “He talks about it like everyone could do it.
“We were actually talking one time after he had hurdled someone, one of the many times. And we were like, ‘How do you just do that?’ And he was like, ‘What do you mean? You just jump over him. It just happens.’ And he’s talking about it like everyone can do it. He’s looking at me like, ‘Bro, you can do it.’ I’m like, I don’t think I could do that, Sa.’”
The legend of Saquon Barkley will live on, especially after a season that saw him nearly become the NFL’s single-season rushing leader, an opportunity he passed on for the health of his team. But the legend did not begin this fall, nor at the start of his NFL career. In many ways, it began to form during his days at Penn State, where he first took the football world by storm.
It was with the Nittany Lions that clips of Barkley’s elite potential began to shock those in and outside the facilities. His famous “Lions’ Den” rush, in which he shook four defenders with no help from his offensive line made him a viral sensation in 2016. That was before he defined himself as one of the nation’s top overall talents and won a Big Ten Championship.
“You can’t point to one moment when every moment is a moment,” Moorhead told StateCollege.com. “You see him make a play, and you’re like, ‘Ah, he can never do anything better. How can he top that?’ And then later in the practice, he would top it. Then the next day he would top that, and then the next week he would top that. And it was just like, man, what can’t this kid do?”
Barkley’s abilities on the football field have long been documented. But it’s what he’s done off the field, the things that the common viewer hasn’t seen, that’s grown his legend even greater. Former Penn State linebacker Brandon Bell remembers a pickup basketball game he played in alongside Barkley and a handful of fellow teammates.
This was in 2015, Barkley’s freshman year of college. At that point, it’d become clear to those in the program that Barkley was a gifted talent, but it wasn’t necessarily made widely apparent to the bulk of the college football world. This was a moment that sent shockwaves through Bell, who, just a year later, would see Barkley ascend into a Heisman Trophy candidate.
“The first time playing basketball with him, and it’s kind of lackadaisical, not going too hard. And he just exploded to the rim on a casual drive,” Bell told StateCollege.com. “Anyone else would think they’re just laying the ball up, and he just exploded and dunked it. It was just another typical basketball play for him. But everyone froze while he was in the air.”
That’s just one of many stories that piece together the lore that is Saquon Barkley. It’s been no surprise for his college teammates to see the overwhelming success that Barkley has had, particularly this season. As long as they’ve known him, Barkley has been the best at everything. And that extends beyond sports. Everything.
“Dude’s like the all-time competitor, whether it’s on the football field or off the field,” Cincinnati Bengals tight end Mike Gesicki told StateCollege.com. “I remember my quarterback at the time was Ryan Fitzpatrick, and he came to my wedding, and he met Saquon and a couple minutes into them meeting, they’re like, ‘All right, let’s chug a beer.’ Saquon took it like it was the biggest thing in the world, like ‘I gotta win this.’
“It doesn’t matter if it’s football, it doesn’t matter if it’s off the court playing basketball, it doesn’t matter if it’s in the weight room or if it’s ‘Hey, Fitz, let’s chug this beer.’ It’s in him. It doesn’t matter what he does, doesn’t matter who he’s competing against, it’s just what he is.”
Yes, Barkley won the chugging contest against Fitzpatrick. But no matter how many victories he obtains, how many tackles he breaks, how many defenses he embarrasses, Barkley hardly ever lets his ego show. He loves to win, most especially when he can alongside others. Barkley finds joy in helping others succeed, whether he knows them well or not.
Barkley, Gesicki and McSorley were working out at Princeton this past summer, when the university’s football team was getting out of practice. In the sea of football players who recognized Barkley and asked for pictures was a young man with a different question: “Would you mind if I join?” he asked.
“He jumped in, was running routes with us. And then towards the end, he started asking some questions, and then Sa started coaching him up and giving him pointers on how to run routes and how to track and giving him confidence,” McSorley said. “I think it’s just the type of guy he is, how he leads, how he’s always pushing himself, but he always wants to see everyone else getting better at the same time. And the impact he has on everybody else is special because of that.”
Barkley was, of course, a fan favorite at McSorley’s wedding in 2023. McSorley had family come in from California, and his mother’s aunt returned with a story that she still brags to her friends about. Barkley asked her to dance. There, on the dance floor, was Barkley spinning around McSorley’s gleeful, 60-year-old great aunt.
“He’s a normal dude that does incredible things day in and day out. To hear my aunt’s perspective of it was really cool,” McSorley said. “To her, it’s Saquon Barkley, rookie of the year, this and that. But to all of us, that’s Sa that we hung out with all the time. I think that just epitomizes who he can be as a person. The impact he has on everybody is incredible, even when he’s doing something very mundane.”
But there is nothing mundane about football, especially in the way Barkley plays. Hurdles. Jump-cuts. Explosive plays. Barkley does things differently, sometimes eloquently. He runs with grace and tenacity. He’s built in such a way that gives opposing defensive players and coordinator migraines when determining how to tackle, or at least contain, him.
The injuries and bouts with losing football as a member of the New York Giants are long behind Barkley. He’s playing freely, and has celebrated with his arms in a windmill like he used to do at Penn State. McSorley, Gesicki, Moorhead, Bell, they’re all seeing it — the Barkley they know and love. The Barkley of legend.
“People with his talent and ability, and certainly at that point, his future potential, probably have every right to be confident and borderline cocky and have a huge ego. But he’s the exact opposite,” Moorhead said. “He’s the best player in the room and the guy who works like he’s the least talented.”
