MORGANTOWN, W. Va. – Collin Barber stood in the Syracuse interview room and answered all the questions. But he didn’t even need to speak.

His face showed it all – gloom, anger, even repulsion.

The fifth-year senior kicker had let his team down when it needed him the most and the Kentucky native was the first to admit it.

Barber missed field goals of 41 and 42 yards and had another from 46 yards blocked. He later missed a third-quarter extra point off the left post. The piercing clang the ball made seemed to represent the mood of the Syracuse football team’s 27-6 loss to West Virginia Thursday night at Mountaineer Field.

‘I don’t think we took a step back, but we made some critical errors,’ special teams coach Chris Rippon said.

Some critical errors that may have cost SU the game.

In SU’s Oct. 9 loss to Florida State, special teams play began to unravel as Collin Barber missed two key field goals.

Last night, the special teams unit’s bottom fell out.

Along with Barber’s miscues, Brendan Carney suffered his first blocked punt of the season and Marcus Clayton – returning punts for the first time this season – muffed one.

Barber’s misses took 10 points off the board. The other miscues put 14 West Virginia points on it. That’s a 24-point swing. The Orange lost by 21.

‘The team played well,’ Barber said. ‘I put a lot of the blame on myself. We needed a field goal. I feel like I let the team down. How would you feel?’

The trouble started early for the Orange, when Barber missed field goals on the first two drives. Barber started the season making seven of nine kicks. But he’s faltered since the FSU game, making just two of seven.

But as Rippon pointed out, all the blame can’t be placed on Barber. Against Florida State, it appeared that holder Jared Jones didn’t turn the laces away from Barber. Rippon still had to evaluate the tape to determine the cause of Barber’s problems last night.

Rippon and Barber agreed he missed the extra point because he was thinking about the three other missed kicks.

‘If we had an opportunity for another field goal, I think he deserves that,’ Rippon said. ‘But he has to understand that it’s for the good of the team that we play the best player. Either you get out of your funk or we have to go to the next guy.

‘I have to do a great job evaluating what the problem is. It always comes down to the kicker, but it’s still: Was the snap there on time? Was the hold where it’s supposed to be? Was the protection where it had to be? To the naked eye, it’s always the kicker.’

Barber said he can’t worry about someone else taking his place. He knows he has to regain his focus.

While Barber put much of the blame on himself, he was not the lone culprit. Clayton’s muffed punt set up a 25-yard touchdown pass from Rasheed Marshall to Chris Henry.

On that play, it appeared Clayton lost his concentration among a mass of SU and WVU players. Rippon said he couldn’t tell if Mountaineer players had interfered with Clayton or if he had just lost concentration. Either way, it helped put the Mountaineers up, 17-0, at halftime.

Carney’s blocked punt looked more like a missed block by the Orange than a bad snap or bad play by Carney. In the Orange’s new protection scheme, three players stand between the line and Carney. One WVU player, Thandi Smith, made it through the original line, and the middle blockers didn’t even attempt to pick him up.

‘All week long we worked on getting down the field to contain (Adam) ‘Pac-Man’ (Jones),’ SU head coach Paul Pasqualoni said. ‘When our guys saw everybody drop, they gave up on the play and let one guy run by them to block the punt.’

Overall, it was a special teams disaster for the Orange. And a disaster that Barber won’t forget anytime soon.

The last time a Barber kick cost Syracuse so much was a missed extra point in a 2002, 17-16 loss to Temple. He rebounded from that and hopes to do the same again.

‘I can’t let this happen again,’ Barber said. ‘I’ve got to bounce back next week because my teammates need me. I lost my head. It’s something you can’t do. You gotta bounce back and I didn’t.’

Neither did the Orange.

Published on October 21, 2004 at 12:00 pm