Dukes travel to Umass

Barnes takes field after three-year wait

by Matthew Stoss/Sports Editor

Meet Justin Barnes. He likes to hit people.

“It’s a great feeling to hit someone you don’t know,” JMU’s sophomore linebacker said.

 Don’t worry. It’s legal. He’s a linebacker and of late, coach Mickey Matthews has been pleased with the play of Barnes and the rest of his linebackers after a sluggish start replacing the graduated Trey Townsend and Kwynn Walton to begin the season.

“The linebackers are playing much better than they were,” Matthews said Monday at his weekly press conference.

Barnes, a 6-foot-2, 215-pounder from Columbia, Md., is currently second for the fourth-ranked Dukes (4-1 overall, 2-0 in the Atlantic 10) in total tackles with 39, three behind last year’s season leader sophomore free safety Tony LeZotte who has 42. Eighteen of Barnes’s 39 tackles have been of the solo variety.

Barnes had a brief stint of offense in high school, but decided it wasn’t for him.

“I wanted to be a linebacker; I love defense,” Barnes said after practice Tuesday. “When I went to prep school, they actually asked me which side I wanted to play and I told them defense. The only reason I played tailback in high school was because the coach made me.”

He wasn’t bad at it either. He rushed for 1,500 yards and 25 touchdowns, before moving on to prep school at Bridgton Academy in Maine at the behest of the JMU coaching staff, who wanted Barnes to get bigger, faster and stronger before taking to the turf of Bridgeforth Stadium. However, it would take Barnes longer than he, or anyone ever expected to get there.

Since graduating from high school in 2001, this season is the first he has played a down for the Dukes. After redshirting his freshman year, Barnes was ineligible to compete in 2004 due to problems unrelated to football and forced to sit out yet another season.

“They treated me just like I was playing,” Barnes said. “If you didn’t know my situation, you couldn’t tell the difference. They made me come to meetings and every practice. The coaches were treating me the same. It’s a real family atmosphere and I wasn’t an outcast at all.

“I think it helped me a lot though because it gave me a chance to grow and mature and adapt to the college life.”

But the worst part was being relegated to the role of spectator while his fellow Dukes rolled to the 2004 Division I-AA national title.

“It was hard to watch,” Barnes said. “I practiced with the team every day and I felt as though I was a part of the team, but I would like to get one when I’m actually on the field making plays.”

But they say good things come to those who wait, and in 2005, Barnes’s waiting came to an end. In his last two games, Barnes has 19 tackles — one more than in the first three combined. Oct. 1 in JMU’s 42-10 win over Hofstra University, Barnes had a team-high nine tackles to go with his first collegiate sack which went for a 6-yard loss. Last weekend, he recorded double-digit tackles, racking up 10 in Madison’s 38-2 trouncing of the University of Maine.

“He’s a great athlete,” Matthews said. “It doesn’t surprise me, because in practice he’s made a lot of plays. You could tell how much ability he had in practice.”

In Barnes’s first-ever collegiate game against Lock Haven University Sept. 3, he recorded six tackles, four solo.

“The first game I was really anxious,” Barnes said. “I couldn’t sleep for two nights before. I was really nervous. I kind of forgot how it is to be in the game because it’s been three years. It was a nerve-wracking feeling, but it was a good feeling, a really good feeling. After the first hit, all the jitterbugs went away.”

The Dukes waited for three years for that first hit and thus far, Barnes has been worth the wait.

“The coaches really believed in me,” he said. “They kept through those three years of not producing, and I really thank them for that.”