Penn State lost the most electric running back in college football after 2017. Saquon Barkley was dazzling, and the NFL decided he was as good as his wild Happy Valley highlight reel. The No. 2 overall pick was just about as significant a subtraction as a team could have.
Meet the RB who’s kept Penn State from missing a beat after Saquon Barkley
Miles Sanders isn’t Barkley, but he’s one of the most talented backs in the country all the same.
Mike Granse-USA TODAY Sports
But to start 2018, Penn State hasn’t missed a beat. The Nittany Lions have bumped Barkley’s former understudy up to his starting spot, and improvements at other position groups have helped the offense keep humming along. The new Barkley, so far, looks a lot like the old.
Penn State had the luxury of replacing Barkley with Miles Sanders, a five-star junior who spent two years working behind Barkley.
Sanders was a huge recruit, the No. 1 running back in the class of 2016. He played at Woodland Hills (Pa.), the powerhouse school just outside Pittsburgh that produced eventual Hall of Famers Rob Gronkowski and Jason Taylor. Sanders was more hyped coming out than any of them, making him a prize for James Franklin before PSU’s revival became clear.
But Sanders had a weird track. Many five-star freshman running backs get regular work in their first year on campus, barring injuries. Just about all of them do by their sophomore years. Behind Barkley, Sanders was an exception. He carried 25 times as a freshman and 31 as a sophomore, playing sparingly across 25 games over those seasons.
Penn State was basically a one-running back team when it had Barkley, and why not? He was a special player, and he was in such legendary shape that going well over 200 carries wasn’t a problem. The risk was that Sanders might go stale or transfer, as lots of players do when they aren’t getting much playing time. Instead, Sanders waited, and now Penn State has the blessing of a five-star talent who’s somehow both seasoned and well-rested.
With Barkley in the NFL, Sanders has gotten his first extended run.
The Nittany Lions are closer to having a running back by committee now, with Sanders getting most of the carries and five-star freshman Ricky Slade also involved. (Senior Mark Allen had been, too, but the Nittany Lions just ruled him out for the year with an injury.) Sanders is still the clear No. 1, and he’s started as well as anyone could’ve hoped.
Sanders’ first four starts produced 71 carries for 495 yards (a 7.0 average) and five touchdowns, plus seven catches for 56 yards.
That hot start came against Appalachian State, Kent State, Pitt, and Illinois. There are one or two good defenses in there, but obviously Sanders’ biggest tests lie ahead.
An elite RB is an elite RB, and Sanders’ skills aren’t that different than Barkley’s. But the two do have somewhat different styles.
Sanders has incredible agility and big, powerful legs, just like Barkley. He blends speed and power well, with inside and outside running skill. He’s the best athlete on the field most of the time, capable of running around you or through you. All standard.
They aren’t exactly the same player, though. Sanders is more of a north-south runner, less inclined than Barkley to weave from side to side in search of an opening.
Sanders isn’t as polished a receiver as Barkley was by the time he left Penn State, though pass-catching was continual work in progress for Barkley during his time. (He went from 20 to 28 to 54 catches in three seasons.)
Sanders doesn’t have that gear Barkley had, the barely describable ability to blow past a whole mass of tacklers and make it look like he’s not even trying. He doesn’t spend as much time dancing near the line as Barkley did, either. Sanders usually just goes. But he’s flashed similar elusiveness at times and a Barkley-like sense for where open grass is.
Sanders’ advanced stats align with his more conservative style.
In his first month as the starter, Sanders’ marginal efficiency — how often his carries were successful, compared to the standard on plays of the same down, distance, and yard line — was 15.5 percent. (A deeper explanation’s here, but a successful play is defined as one that gets 50 percent of the yardage to gain on first down, 70 percent on second down, or all of it on third/fourth down.)
Sanders’ marginal explosiveness was almost exactly zero. He doesn’t hit a lot of home runs. His game is moving the ball up the field steadily and reliably.
Nobody expects Sanders to be Barkley, but Penn State’s offense doesn’t have to miss a beat, even against elite competition.
Barkley was a brilliant, fun college running back. He totaled huge numbers. But he wasn’t especially efficient on a down-to-down basis. Barkley was a feast-or-famine back, capable of routine huge runs but also of getting stacked up often. Both came along with his tendency to wait for perfect opportunities to hit holes and to run horizontally to fine them. He had to contend, too, with Penn State offensive lines that ranged from awful to average. (On another hand, Penn State’s line had to block for Barkley, which wasn’t easy.)
Sanders will never build a highlight tape like Barkley’s, but it’s absolutely possible that he exceeds Barkley’s 5.7-yard career carry average. It will help that PSU’s line has gradually gotten more talented. The five-man unit Sanders runs behind includes former four-star recruits at left tackle, left guard, center, and right guard, and a three-star developmental success story who’s a fifth-year senior at right tackle. Penn State’s post-NCAA sanctions recruiting has fully kicked in now, and no one benefits more than Sanders.
So, Sanders doesn’t have to be Barkley. He just has to be Sanders, and with Penn State’s line and the threat of the pass Trace McSorley creates, being Sanders is more than enough.
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