Blue White Illustrated

T H E 2 0 1 5 S E A S O N A STEP AHEAD Saquon Barkley has made a marvelous first impression, and that's no surprise to those who know him best | W atch Saquon Barkley carry the football, and you might use the kind of words to describe him that you would for a world champion boxer. Agile, quick, powerful and Holy... did you see that? Perhaps that's fitting, as Barkley's blood- lines run deep in the sport. His father, Alibay, was a top-end amateur boxer until an injury shortened his career. Also, his great uncle is the renowned Iran "The Blade" Barkley, a three-time world cham- pion in the 1980s and '90s. Even Saquon sparred in gyms as a child. "I always wanted him to be a boxer, tried pushing him that way," his father said. "Then football came and it took over." Now Barkley is trying to take football over, and he's got a pretty good head start. When Alibay and his wife, Tonya John- son, dropped off their teenage son at Penn State this summer, it was with the ex- pectation that he would soon find success. That's how he'd always done it, after all – whether it was in the boxing ring or on the football field. That's just his mentality, his mom said. "We tend to see him as ma- ture enough to roll with it." Barkley picked up the boxing skills right away, although he was too young to face live competition. When he played his very first football game, after his family moved from Bronx, N.Y., to Pennsylvania, he scored more than 30 touchdowns in his very first year. "He did very well that sea- son," Alibay remembered. "He scored 32 touchdowns at 8 years old." Ten years later, the freshman rushed for 372 yards and scored three TDs in his first three games in Beaver Stadium. Not quite a match of his earlier pace, but it twice earned him recognition as Big Ten Fresh- man of the Week. His 8.9 yards per carry, too, put him atop league standings, even though a right ankle injury forced him to the sideline for a couple games. Barkley's parents couldn't have foreseen the im- mediate impact that he's made – "Not this early, no," said Johnson – but they say it's not surprising. Alibay Barkley and Tonya Johnson have seen the needed traits radiate from Saquon since childhood – qualities that don't necessarily reveal themselves while he's running the ball. "Nobody is going to tell him he can't do it," Alibay said in attempt to explain Barkley's quick study. "That's what that is; it's just his determination." It's an approach he takes to both life and football and one his mother said far outweighs his athletic prowess. "He has a thirst for knowledge," Johnson said. SAQUON BARKLEY GAME-BY-GAME RUSHING RECEIVING OPP ATT YDS TD LG AVG REC YDS TD LG Temple 1 1 0 1 1.0 0 0 0 0 Bu3alo 12 115 1 33 9.6 0 0 0 0 Rutgers 21 195 2 54 9.3 0 0 0 0 San Diego State 8 62 0 34 7.8 1 22 1 22 Army DNP – – – – – – – – Indiana DNP – – – – – – – – Ohio State 26 194 0 56 7.5 0 0 0 0 TOTAL 68 567 3 56 8.3 1 22 1 22

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