Once Mark Richt caught a glance of the footballs flying off Collin Barber’s foot, he didn’t hesitate to offer the Cartersville punter a scholarship. Once that scholarship was offered, Barber didn’t hesitate either, committing last week to play at the University of Georgia.

“The coaches invited me out for a workout on June 11 and I was the only kicker there,” said Barber of the day he was offered to play at UGA. “I kicked 20 or 25 balls with five or six having a hangtime around five seconds, then Coach Richt came down to talk to me.”

“He said he was sitting in his office and saw balls flying so high that he thought Drew Butler was practicing.”

Butler is Georgia’s All-American punter that led the nation in yards per punt and won the Ray Guy Award in 2009.

Barber said Richt then walked him, his mother Marian and Cartersville coach Frank Barden outside and sat under a tree on campus to talk.

“He said they were looking for a guy to replace Butler after this season and he thought I could be the guy. I took a minute and accepted his offer,” said Barber, who broke Cartersville’s school record with a 54-yard field goal last season.

The opportunity to play college football, much less at the highest level, isn’t one that Barber had even put much thought into until recently.

Growing up with a father from England, Collin could always be found doing his kicking on the soccer fields. Then, just before his freshman year, Collin’s friend, and Frank Barden’s son T.J., saw him kicking balls and encouraged him to come out for the team.

“I honestly never thought about playing football until that point, but I told [T.J.] alright, went out for the team and made it.”

By the end of his sophomore year Barber’s leg was turning heads all around town.

“People were telling me how good I was but I didn’t really think anything of it until [a teammate’s] dad told me about the Kohl’s kicking camp in Flowery Branch.”

The Kohl’s camps are held annually across the country for the top high school kickers, punters and snappers.

After the local camp, Barber performed well enough to be invited to their national camp at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. A few more booming kicks and he came away labeled as the second-best punter in the nation. The college interest began to snowball from there.

Barber received interest from the biggest football programs in the Southeast and originally scheduled visits to kick this summer at Clemson, Auburn, and Alabama. Those visits have since been cancelled, with Barber saying he is all Dawg now.