BOULDER – Through eight months as a Buffalo, inside linebacker Robert Barnes is thrilled with his new position coach Mark Smith.
“He’s an awesome coach,” Barnes said on Friday. “They’re using me in a place where I’ve been wanting to play. My position is a perfect scenario for me and I’m just going out there every day and honing in on that position and trying to perfect my craft in that one area.”
That position is the “money” linebacker in Colorado’s defense, which is essentially the coverage linebacker. While Nate Landman puts his head down and blows up running backs, Barnes will have his back covering tight ends and running backs of the backfield.
“We mesh perfectly,” Barnes said. “Me and him are both very vocal leaders. That helps on the field, too, because he can focus on his side and I can focus on my side. We can mesh together. We already have communication together where we don’t even have to say anything.”
If you’ve watched either of these linebackers on the field, this setup makes a lot of sense. That’s why Barnes is so happy.
“They’re letting me use my size, they’re letting me cover, they’re letting me do all of the things that I came here to do,” Barnes said. “Each of us have our own little things that we do a little bit better, a little different than the man next to us. (Smith) likes that. He’s almost attracted to that and he just allows us to go play the game.”
While Barnes and Smith both just joined Colorado’s program this spring, they have a history. When Barnes was playing high school football at Carroll Senior in Southlake, Texas, Smith was the director of recruiting at SMU… just across the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Smith never offered Barnes a scholarship.
“I give him a hard time about it but I definitely knew his name around the Metroplex,” Barnes said.
According to Smith, who is now Colorado’s linebackers coach, the Mustangs never offered a scholarship because they knew it was a futile effort.
And he was probably right.
Barnes was given a 98 rating as a recruit from 247Sports, making him the 27th-ranked player nationally and the No. 3 safety in the 2017 class. He passed up offers from Ohio State and Alabama—Mel Tucker was the leader recruiter—and followed in his father’s footsteps at Oklahoma.
Barnes played sparingly in his true freshman season, but took some defensive snaps in almost every game and made a few big plays.
ICYMI! @r0bertbarnes with the beast mode hit heard 'round the world! @OU_Football I know you heard that one #OUCH #Sooners #OUDNA @CFBonFOX pic.twitter.com/Or3LQtwk9l
— FanDuel Sports Network Southwest (@FanDuelSN_SW) October 21, 2017
He took over a starting job early in his sophomore season and Pro Football Focus ranked him the 13th-best of Oklahoma’s 32 defenders. But when the Sooners took on Alabama in the College Football Playoff Semifinal, Barnes was injured when running back Josh Jacobs trampled him in the second quarter.
No one was stopping @iAM_JoshJacobs 😤💪 pic.twitter.com/o1V0eJQQ48
— SEC Network (@SECNetwork) December 30, 2018
The injury was never fully explained, but it was considered a “lower-body” injury. Barnes didn’t see the field again in the game and was held out of spring ball because of the same injury.
When Barnes took the field in the 2019 season, he graded out poorly. He was sat down following the season’s fourth game, allowing him to call 2019 a redshirt year and preserve a year of eligibility.
Then, the following spring, Oklahoma brought in a new defensive coordinator: Alex Grinch.
The hire was bad news for Barnes.
“He had a different defensive scheme and he wanted smaller safeties,” Barnes said. “There wasn’t really room for a box type of safety.”
So Barnes went to head coach Lincoln Riley to figure out where he fit in with the Sooners. The pair decided, together, that Barnes’ best bet was a switch to linebacker.
Then, another bad break.
“Once we learned about the transition, I only got one practice in and then COVID hit,” Barnes said.
Luckily, Barnes was able to study up on his new role at home with his father, who was a linebacker at Oklahoma before winning a Super Bowl with the Dallas Cowboys.
“I got to spend three months with my dad going over linebacker stuff; where you keep your eyes, the keys, your hands,” Barnes said. “I think that was a blessing in disguise.”
Barnes bulked up and spent fall camp playing linebacker.
“I enjoyed the position,” Barnes said. “It was a little bit more box-type linebacker.”
When the season came around, though, Barnes mostly played special teams. His only start came after a COVID outbreak knocked a chunk of the secondary out against Baylor, and Barnes stepped into a starting safety job.
“I was able to keep that versatility,” Barnes said. “I felt comfortable (at safety against Baylor). I was 30 pounds heavier but was still able to cover and do all the things I needed to do.”
Barnes transferred to Colorado this spring as a linebacker with two years of eligibility remaining. With Nate Landman sidelined by an Achilles injury during spring camp, Barnes was pushed into a leadership position immediately.
That wasn’t the plan.
“The initial plan was to come in here, lead during workouts but not be vocal at first,” Barnes said. “I just wanted to win every rep and show guys that I knew how to work, I knew how to work hard, and then eventually bring one or two guys with me and then eventually five or six guys and then eventually leadership was set out there.”
Despite being on campus for less than eight months, Barnes has been noted as one of the team’s key leaders repeatedly by coaches and players alike during fall camp.
“Now everybody’s telling me, ‘break it out, break it down,’ or whatever,” Barnes said. “I can see those eyes are on me now.”
Barnes’ voice in the locker room is important. He’s one of a very small number of players on the roster who have seen real success at the collegiate level. His teams at Oklahoma played in the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Peach Bowl and Cotton Bowl. They lost five regular-season games in four seasons. They only missed the College Football Playoff once.
“I was blessed to be at a school for four years that had that standard, that had established that standard, that had quarterbacks like Jalen Hurts come in from Alabama who had his standard and brought it,” Barnes said. “I’ve seen what it looks like. I’ve seen guys work and I’ve seen what it takes.”
It was, as you would expect, a bit of a culture shock when Barnes arrived in Boulder after four seasons in Norman.
“Guys weren’t used to winning. It was something that was kind of far-fetched to them,” Barnes said. “It wasn’t like they knew that they could never do it, it was just like they were never taught, ‘this is how you have to work day-in, day-out.’ That’s to my point of coming in here and showing them what it looks like—not missing a rep, winning every rep, competing during summer workouts and making it a point to not be late, to be on time, to pick up after we go work out and all that stuff.”
Barnes feels that his role on the team, beyond playing linebacker to the best of his ability, is to teach his teammates how to win.
He says his teammates are ready to learn.
“You can tell just by looking at a guy’s eyes that when I talk they ‘want to,'” Barnes said. “It’s a ‘want-to’ thing. We’ve got the formula, we’ve got the blueprint, now we just go out and do it.”
Barnes says he’s already seen changes.
“Since the spring, we’ve had a whole bunch of improvements,” Barnes said.
Last week, a teammate walked up to Barnes and said, “We haven’t had a fun practice like this.” Barnes says that’s evidence of the culture shift setting in. Practice isn’t a chore like it used to be. It’s an opportunity to compete and competing is fun.
Football is fun.
“I’m very vocal (during practice),” Barnes said. “I’m laughing, I’m talking mess to the receivers, to the coaches—I don’t care. I’m out there talking and having a good time.”
There’s a different—and according to Barnes, more useful—energy when guys are having fun.
“Just to hear him say that, like ‘we haven’t had fun,’ that’s what it takes,” Barnes said. “It takes a team having fun, abiding by that standard and competing to win championships, to win the Pac. To do everything we want to do this year, it’s going to take enjoying the process. Period.”
