White: Barker Primed for Senior Season

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)

GREENSBORO, N.C. – To an illustrious list that includes Bob Olderman, Jim Dombrowski, Ray Roberts, D’Brickashaw Ferguson, Branden Albert and Eugene Monroe, Will Barker hopes to add his name.

Under George Welsh and his successor as University of Virginia football coach, Al Groh, offensive linemen have moved regularly from UVa to the NFL, and Barker may well be next in that procession.

He has the size to play at the next level – the fifth-year senior from the Philadelphia area stands 6-7 and weighs 320 pounds – and for stretches he’s shown the requisite skills. Barker has started 37 consecutive games, the most of any returning Cavalier, and you’ll find him listed in mock NFL drafts for 2010.

Entering his final college season, however, he has yet to earn even honorable-mention all-ACC recognition. That’s partly because he’s been overshadowed by such teammates as Albert and Monroe, but also because inconsistency has marred his career.

“Obviously you look back when it’s all coming to an end,” Barker, 22, said today at the ACC Football Kickoff, “and you think about what you could have done differently, how you could have played, how you could have handled different things. But the past is the past to me. I’ve experienced a lot, and I’ve kind of learned from my mistakes.”

As a redshirt freshman, Barker struggled for much of the season, but he started every game at right tackle, and he followed that with a solid 2007 campaign. Given the progress he made in ’07, much was expected of the mammoth redhead in ’08. But the first month of the season was a nightmare for Barker.

There were extenuating circumstances. On the eve of the Cavaliers’ training camp last year, Barker and teammate Dave Roberts had been arrested and charged with petit larceny after an incident at an after-hours nightclub in Charlottesville. They were acquitted of the charges, which earned the players unwanted notoriety on Internet sites, but not before Virginia had played five games.

“I really don’t like to think about it,” said Barker, who’s scheduled to graduate in December with a degree in anthropology. “It happened, and I’m over it. It’s not an issue anymore, and I don’t want it to be an issue anymore.

“Obviously it was a distraction. When it was over, that’s when I could start to focus on football, and that’s when things started to roll.”

On an offensive line that returns four starters, Barker is by far the most experienced player. And his role has changed with the departure of Monroe, a first-round pick this year.

“Those guys respect Will,” quarterback Vic Hall, who entered UVa with Barker in 2005, said today. “They know he knows his job. He’s done it for four years and been successful.”

Barker said: “I’ve done my time. I’ve played a lot of ball, and I guess that kind of makes me a leader. I have to be a leader.”

More than that, Barker knows, he must lift his level of play. The starter at left tackle is likely to be sophomore Landon Bradley, who’s appeared in only one college game. The starter at left guard, sophomore Austin Pasztor, won’t turn 19 until December. Barker’s importance in the Wahoos’ new spread offense can hardly be overstated.

“I just know I’ve gotta play every play like it’s my last,” he said. “I’ve got the mindset that I need to have a great season, not only for myself, but for this team. I know this team needs me to have a great season.

And if he has that kind of season? Then he might be considered a worthy successor to such luminaries as Dombrowski and Ferguson and Monroe.

“I’m proud to be in a place with such great tradition as that, especially linemen,” Barker said. “It doesn’t happen everywhere. Just the fact that there’s been all these great players here, and at the same time I’ve started for four years, it’s kind of surreal.”

EXTRA POINTS: Media guides were distributed yesterday, and several players with eligibility remaining were missing from the UVa book.

Tight end Rod Wheeler and defensive end Kevin Crawford have left the program, and defensive end Andrew Devlin, who arrived at Virginia as a tight end, has transferred to Pittsburgh. Offensive tackle Morgan Moses, a Parade All-American from the Richmond area, is headed to prep school, as expected, to bolster his academic credentials.