On most afternoons when the media gather at the Bill Kajikawa Practice Facility for interviews, there's always quite a commotion of players entering the field. They joke and answer questions while coaches chat with them and with other eager reporters.
Then, there's always that one guy already in pads, seemingly going unnoticed. While reporters await the team's arrival, some marvel at his uncanny accuracy and strength, as he consistently boots ball after ball through the uprights, sometimes from 50-plus yards away.
Senior place-kicker Mike Barth never realized how much he really was noticed for his talent until missing four field goals Saturday in ASU's 38-35 loss to North Carolina.
"I've never seen Mike Barth have a day like that," Sun Devil head coach Dirk Koetter said. "Being a kicker is a lot like a golf swing, sometimes you lose it, and Mike lost it."
But Barth was eager to get back out to the field and correct what he was doing wrong.
"I was really surprised. I've never kicked like that before," Barth said. "I started losing trust, like a swing. All the sudden, you miss a couple and you start thinking, 'Maybe I need to change this, maybe I need to tweak that.' On the tape, I could really tell I wasn't trusting myself. I was overcorrecting."
Barth has made a name for himself as one of the nation's most reliable kickers. He was ranked as the 25th-best kicker in the country by The Sporting News.
Entering his final season at the collegiate level, Barth had hit 26 of 39 (66.7 percent) field goal attempts. He has quietly been the team's leading scorer for the past two seasons by marking 86 points in 2000 and 70 last year. Barth leads the Sun Devils in scoring this season with 49 points, one more than junior wide receiver Shaun McDonald.
"I just try to make all my extra points, and then all my field goals. It just happens that I have the most points," Barth said. "I don't consider myself a big scorer. Shaun is the one making all the huge plays, then I get the easy plays."
Personal goals couldn't be further from Barth's mind. Barth is one of only 11 Sun Devils that played in each of the team's last two bowl games. Although the Aloha Bowl offered Barth a chance to compete in the postseason, he said his team is capable of much more.
"We played in the Aloha Bowl twice, but both times, we played like crap," he said. "I want us to win. I want us to get to a big bowl game this year — play in front of 60,000 to 70,000 people for something that matters."
Barth accounted for all of ASU's points in the 1999 Aloha Bowl by booting a 46-yard field goal in the second quarter in a 23-3 loss to Wake Forest. The following year, he nailed one from 26 yards out in ASU's 31-17 setback against Boston College.
Barth is a legitimate kicker and vital piece of the puzzle for ASU. After his nightmarish outing Saturday, his teammates and coaches rallied behind him. They have described him as "nails" and as a "sure thing."
"I was like, 'Wow.' I didn't know what to expect," Barth said. "I read the paper the next day, and thought to myself, 'Dang, I've got a lot of friends on this team.' Everyone on the team wants me to get it right, so we can get some wins together."
Reach the reporter at damien.tippett@asu.edu.
