UNIVERSITY PARK — After collecting a ton of pre-season accolades, it didn’t take long for Penn State running back Saquon Barkley to start earning some regular season awards.
The junior Heisman Trophy contender was voted the co-Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week after his performance in the Nittany Lions’ 52-0 shutout win over Akron Saturday. He shares the honor with Ohio State’s J.T. Barrett.
This is Barkley’s third conference offensive weekly award.
Barkley had 246 all-purpose yards on 18 touches against the Zips. The junior rushed for 172 yards on 14 carries (12.3 ypc) with two touchdowns and added three receptions for 54 yards (18.0 ypr). He also returned on kick 20 yards.
Among Barkley’s highlight-reel efforts on Saturday was an 80-yard rush in the second quarter, which was the second-longest of his career and tied for the 10th-best rush in program history. The run was initially ruled an 87-yard touchdown, but the officials conferred and eventually determined Barkley had stepped out of bounds at the Akron 7-yard line before reaching the end zone.
Barkley and Ki-Jana Carter are the only players in program history to have multiple 80-yard rushes in their career. Barkley has two career rushes of 80 or more yards, while Carter had three.
With two rushing scores, Barkley moved into eighth place on Penn State’s career rushing touchdowns list. It also marked his seventh multiple-rushing touchdown game and the ninth multiple-touchdown performance of his career. Barkley, who had his 11th career 100-yard rushing game, boosted his career rushing yardage total to 2,744 yards to move into 11th place in Penn State history.
The sixth-ranked Nittany Lions host Pitt for the first time since 1999 at 3:30 p.m. on ABC as part of a three-game non-conference home stand to open the season.
