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kickoff returns that Nittany Lion fans will remember for a long time to come. The day after rushing for 137 yards in Penn State's 35-28 victory over Wash- ington in the Fiesta Bowl, he declared himself eligible for the NFL Draft, bringing an end to his brilliant college career and triggering a wave of specula- tion about where his most likely desti- nation will be when the first round of the draft takes place on April 26. Although pro teams have increasingly tended to view running backs as inter- changeable cogs to be acquired and dis- carded as necessary, Barkley is the kind of player whose versatile skill set will likely enable him to buck the trend. He's a running back who can catch passes, and the passing game is ascendant in the modern NFL. As of mid-January, ESPN analyst Mel Kiper Jr. was rating him the No. 1 prospect in the draft, calling him "a lights-out athlete with tremendous balance, a great lower body and quick feet." But the future isn't the only phase of Barkley's career that's up for grabs. So, too, is the past. His decision to leave early, and soon thereafter to sign with Jay-Z's management company, Roc Na- tion Sports, gave Penn State watchers li- cense to begin trying to put everything in context. And that meant measuring Barkley against the great players who preceded him. It's hard to compare players across eras, in part because there are more games now than there were even a dozen years ago. Moore, who totaled 2,372 yards, played only 27 games in his career; Barkley played that many games in his last two seasons alone. Inevitably, the numbers of older players aren't going to match those of their successors, and re- cency bias only exacerbates the tendency to dismiss players from earlier eras. Few of the fans who filed into Beaver Stadium last year were old enough to have seen Moore, who wrapped up his Nittany Lion career in 1955. Warner and Blair Thomas were retired from the NFL before most current Penn State students were born, while Carter was in the final stages of an injury-plagued pro career. To a PSU freshman, even Larry Johnson is a blast from the distant past. And if it's difficult to compare eras, it's even harder to attach a value to players' particular skill sets. The 240-pound Curtis Enis had the power to run people over; Joe Paterno used to grumble that he was seeking out tacklers rather than trying to avoid them. Carter had great top-end speed, as he most famously showed on his 83-yard touchdown run against Oregon to open the 1995 Rose Bowl. Thomas had the ankle-breaking moves of a point guard, even after miss- ing the 1988 season with a knee injury. During his three seasons at Penn State, Saquon Barkley carried 671 times, caught 102 passes and returned 18 kick- offs. Many of those touches were ab- solutely spectacular. In ranking Barkley's top five mo- ments with the Nittany Lions, the hard part is determining what to leave out. This list could easily be a top 10 or a top 20, with little drop-off from top to bottom. But in the interest of brevity, we've tried to edit this particular high- light reel down to the best of the best. Here it is: 1 PENN STATE vs. SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA Jan. 2, 2017 This run encapsulated so much of what makes Barkley great: the vision, the elusiveness and the incredible accel- eration. On the Lions' first play of the second half of the Rose Bowl, he takes the handoff from Trace McSorley and slides to the right, looking for an open- ing. As soon as he finds it, he's gone. The 79-yard touchdown run gave Penn State a 28-27 lead after it had fallen behind by 13 points in the first half and was part of a miraculous stretch during which the Nittany Lions scored touchdowns on four consecutive offensive plays. It was an epic scoring binge, and while it wasn't enough to hold off a late Trojans comeback, it did help establish Barkley as one of the game's biggest stars com- ing into the 2017 season. 2 PENN STATE vs. WASHINGTON Dec. 30, 2017 Another bowl game, another breath- taking run. This one followed a quick kick by Huskies quarterback Jake Browning that had pinned the Lions down inside their own 10-yard line. The decision to punt looked as though it might pay off for Washington after Mc- Sorley gained only 1 yard on first down. But the field position became a moot point one play later when Barkley shot through a hole on the left side and reached the second level at full speed. The only player with a prayer of catching him from behind was cornerback Austin Joyner. The 5-foot-10, 182-pound Joyner shed a block from Juwan Johnson and gave chase, but even his consider- able catch-up speed was insufficient, as Barkley dashed into the end zone. The 92-yard run was the longest in Fiesta Bowl history. 3 PENN STATE vs. WISCONSIN Dec. 2, 2016 Not just an elusive runner, Barkley also has great hands. He was the team's fourth-leading receiver during its breakthrough 2016 season, and his biggest catch came in one of the team's biggest games. With Penn State trailing by three points early in the fourth quar- ter of the Big Ten Championship Game, he slipped out of the backfield on sec- ond-and-10 and sprinted down the right sideline on a wheel route. McSor- ley laid the ball on his fingertips, and S A Q U O N B A R K L E Y ' S T O P F I V E M O M E N T S B Y M A T T H E R B

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