50 greatest college football players this century, ranked

• Consensus All-American (2017)
• 2× Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year (2016, 2017)
• 2× First-team All-Big Ten (2016, 2017)

If the order of this list was based solely on versatility, big-play potential, or versatility, Saquon Barkley would easily be in the top five.

Despite being only a three-star prospect according to some recruiting sites, Saquon proved to be one of the most college-ready freshmen in the nation in 2015. He had three straight seasons with over 1,000 rushing yards and totaled more than 5,000 yards from scrimmage and 50 touchdowns at Penn State. In his second game as a collegiate athlete, he rushed for 115 yards and a touchdown. It was the first of 23 games in his three-year career that he would total over 100 yards from scrimmage.

In total, Barley rushed for 43 scores, caught eight touchdowns, returned two kickoffs for touchdowns and also threw a touchdown. Of the 23 games, he went over 100 yards, six of them included 190 or more yards on the ground. Against USC in the 2016 Rose Bowl, Barkley had one of the best games of his career in one of the best college football games of the last 10 years. He ran for 194 yards and two touchdowns, caught five passes for 55 yards and returned a pair of kicks for 57 yards.

Bonus Fact: Penn State had back to back 11-win seasons Barkley’s junior and senior seasons in 2016 and 2017. Those were the first two back-to-back double-digit wins the team had seen since the Joe Paterno era. Barkley was named the Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year in both seasons.