Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Shaquil Barrett took game to a new level at Colorado State

Growing up in Baltimore made him tough.

He learned how to be disciplined during a year at Boys Town in Omaha, Nebraska.

Resilience came from the time he spent at Nebraska-Omaha, which dropped the football program a year into his college career.

Colorado State, though, is where Shaquil Barrett gained the knowledge of the game and confidence in his abilities that have now made him one of the top pass rushers in the NFL.

“That’s where I actually started learning how to get off the ball with confidence a little bit,” Barrett said Monday at a virtual media day for Sunday’s Super Bowl LV in Tampa, Florida. “Once we hired Coach Joey Porter – we called him ‘Peasy,’ we hired ‘Peasy’ over there – he was a pass-rusher in the league for a while. He started teaching me about my get-off and that’s like the birth of my get-off right there, starting to try to get comfortable with jumping the snap a tiny bit.

“But it helped a lot, and it’s definitely a reason why I’m where I’m at today.”

Barrett, 28, won a Super Bowl ring with the Denver Broncos in 2015-16 and will be playing for a second Sunday with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who are hosting the Kansas City Chiefs in the first Super Bowl played in one of the participating team’s home stadiums.

The 6-foot-2, 250-pound outside linebacker/defensive end led the NFL in sacks in 2019, his first season with the Buccaneers, with 19 ½ in 16 games. He tied Warren Sapp’s franchise record for most sacks in a playoff game with 3 ½ in the Buccaneers’ NFC Championship Game win Jan. 24 over the Green Bay Packers.

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He’s a key player on one of the top defenses in the NFL, earning more than $15.8 million this season – nearly four times what he was paid a year ago – before heading into free agency again after the Super Bowl. He will likely seek a long-term deal that will pay him far more than that as teams get into bidding wars over his services.

Nearly seven years after being bypassed in the NFL Draft – he got his start as an undrafted free agent, spending most of his first season in the league on the practice squad – Barrett has become one of the game’s elite edge pass rushers.

Teammates and coaches remember Barrett having some “raw talent” and other innate qualities when he first came to CSU in the summer of 2011 that helped him grow into the player he has become.

“We all thought he was a good player, and we all thought he could help us,” said Steve Fairchild, CSU’s head coach at the time. “But I don’t think anybody had the magic wand or the glasses to say, ‘Hey, I knew he was going to be this type of player.’ ”

Barrett admitted he had poor eating habits when he came to CSU. Coaches and teammates said he benefitted greatly from the Rams’ offseason conditioning drills and work in the weight room.

Even through those grueling workouts and the most difficult practices, his love for the game stood out. He was always smiling, former CSU defensive end Eli Edwards said. In the weight room, while studying game film in meeting rooms, running wind sprints and during every practice and game.

Barrett was focused, determined and driven.

And far more talented, Edwards said, than anyone expected from a player transferring in from a lower level of competition, the NCAA’s Football Championship Subdivision.

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“I was so envious of Shaq, because physically I was stronger than him,” Edwards said. “I would always look at Shaq Barrett; he’s a pass rusher. I always wanted to know who the best pass rusher was and try to be that guy, and Shaq was the best. I was always watching how he would get around these big dudes and do it with less muscle than me.”

Barrett moved into the starting lineup immediately and led the Rams in tackles in 2011 with 99 while also scoring two touchdowns – one on an in interception return and one on a fumble return. He earned honorable mention in all-conference voting as a junior, making 15 tackles in one game and 67 with 3 ½ sacks for the season.

Porter, a former CSU linebacker who spent 13 years in the NFL and is No. 36 in career sacks, joined then-coach Jim McElwain’s Rams’ staff in 2013, saw “a good athlete that was raw” and “wanted to be better,” he said, and went to work.

A two-time All-Pro voted the “most feared player in the NFL” by other players in a 2006 Sports Illustrated poll, Porter taught Barrett pass-rushing elements like:

“It was good to have him, man,” Porter said. “It was my first chance of being able to coach. He took in what I was saying, and he picked it up so quick.”

Barrett responded with a breakout senior season, recording 12 sacks, a Mountain West record 20 ½ tackles for lost yardage and 80 tackles. He also blocked three kicks, forced four fumbles and recovered two, and was named the MW’s Defensive Player of the Year.

Barrett capped the season with one of the most spectacular bowl performances ever, stripping the ball from Washington State players on successive plays (the player was ruled down before the fumble by a replay review after the first recovery) as CSU pulled off one of the most improbable wins in program history.

“Shaq was already developing himself into a great player before I got there,” Porter said. “But sack-wise, he had never really put up anything. Once we worked on some things, he exploded. He had that great season, and he’s been getting better ever since.

“… I just gave him all the knowledge I had, and he took it from there.”

He took it to the Broncos as an undrafted free agent. Then to a part-time starter alongside stars Von Miller and DeMarcus Ware during a Super Bowl-championship season in 2015.

And finally to the Buccaneers as a free agent in 2019, where he immediately become one of the league’s top pass-rushers. Playing alongside standouts like Devin White, Ndamukong Suh and Jason Pierre-Paul, Barrett has compiled 11 sacks this season, including three in the postseason.

“He’s right up there at the top,” Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes said Monday in his virtual Super Bowl news conference. “… Last time we played them, he strip-sacked me, so I’ve got to make sure I know where he’s at on each and every play.”

Sacks, Barrett learned from Porter, is how the NFL measures defensive linemen and linebackers. The more sacks you get, the more money you’ll earn. And the more confidence you have in your ability, the more sacks you’ll earn.

Barrett said he gains more confidence in his pass-rushing abilities every day. Porter, Fairchild and former teammates Edwards and Cory James said they see it, too, when they watch him play.

“He’s definitely a great player, and I’ve seen him do some amazing stuff, throughout the seasons I played with him at CSU and now in the NFL,” said James, a linebacker who was selected by the Oakland Raiders in the 2016 NFL Draft, played two seasons in the league and now is on the roster of the Canadian Football League’s Calgary Stampeders.

“I went up against him on special teams a couple times when he was with the Broncos, and it was very hard to block him; he’s very elusive. His game’s really good.”

Barrett looked, acted and sounded like the big-time NFL player he has become while sitting at a podium Monday, speaking to reporters around the world in a virtual Super Bowl news conference.

He talked about growing up in Baltimore, about his time in Omaha at Boys Town and Nebraska-Omaha, about his development during his time at CSU, his growth in his seven years in the NFL, the steps he and his wife, Jordanna, have taken to keep themselves and their three children safe during the COVID-19 pandemic and how his Christian faith has helped him keep it all in perspective.

That raw talent and humble young player who was fiercely determined to become a better football player when he arrived at CSU nearly 10 years ago, appeared calm and comfortable in the spotlight as he prepared to go on the game’s biggest stage for the second time this weekend.

“This is my dream come true,” Barrett said. “This is everything that I dreamed for as a kid, to be on this stage, be in the role that I am on the defense and on this team.

“It’s everything I could ever imagine, and I’m going to make sure that I take full advantage of it.”

Contact Coloradoan reporter Kelly Lyell at kellylyell@coloradoan.com, follow him on Twitter @KellyLyell and find him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/KellyLyell.news. Support his work and that of other Coloradoan journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.