Kayleb Barnett is Transcending Size, Conventional Thinking as Vanderbilt Contributor
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NASHVILLE—-Line up Vanderbilt’s football players in a contest to find the most physically intimidating player on the roster and it wouldn’t be hard to guess where Kayleb Barnett would end up.
The 5-foot-8, 160 pound freshman doesn’t fit the prototypical SEC body type or frame. In a way, the first thing that stands out about the Vanderbilt receiver doesn’t have to do anything with his ability. A first look at him often indicates something he doesn’t have rather than something he does.
"Well,” Vanderbilt head coach Clark Lea said with a smile after Vanderbilt’s week one win over Charleston Southern. “He doesn’t add size.”
Barnett has heard about his size and the way people believed it would limit him throughout his career ever since he was young. Perhaps it stands out more now that he’s a member of an SEC roster, though.
The freshman receiver is Vanderbilt’s shortest scholarship player by multiple inches and is one of just four players on its roster that’s listed below 5-foot-10. Most of those players are walk-ons that haven’t had much of a chance at playing time at any point in their careers. Barnett is different, though.
He’s not letting his size hold him back from what he’s set out to do.
“Everybody just thinks because I’m small that I’m not gonna be able to do nothing,” Barnett told Vandy on SI. “I’ve got to show them what I can do every time.”
Barnett wasn’t projected to see significant playing time as a three-star freshman, but Vanderbilt offensive coordinator Tim Beck made a statement of sorts by getting Barnett involved on the first drive of Vanderbilt’s season. By the end of that night, Barnett had already flashed his unique speed, found the end zone and backflipped his way into a moment that has found itself on the flatscreens in Vanderbilt’s practice facility consistently.
The Vanderbilt freshman played just three snaps in that game and hasn’t been a focal point within its offense, but he’s found a way on to the field and has touched the ball in each game of Vanderbilt’s 4-0 start.
“He's got great hands. He finds his way open, he catches the ball really well,” Lea said. “He can create problems when he gets the ball in space.”
Before Barnett’s name carried any weight outside of Vanderbilt’s program, Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia made sure to add Barnett into an answer regarding the impact Tre Richardson could make on Vanderbilt’s offense.
“It’s like playing with Tyreek Hill and Jalen Waddle on the Dolphins," Pavia said of throwing to Richardson and Barnett in practice. “Good luck guarding them.”
Perhaps Barnett isn’t at the top of scouting reports like Richardson is these days, but he’s a player that opposing defensive coordinators have to account for as they prepare for Vanderbilt’s offense. He’s a weapon that has to be accounted for.
He’s a player that opposing coordinators likely watch and wonder how he’s made an impact so quickly for this Vanderbilt team.
Barnett’s story is an anomaly of sorts. Less than two years before scoring his first career touchdown at an SEC school, he left Broken Arrow High School with zero college offers and had “fell out of love with football.”
The now Vanderbilt receiver says that “none of” his teammates “really wanted to play” and that he felt as if he was out there “doing it” by himself without receiving much recognition for the work he’d put in. Barnett always envisioned he’d be the type of player that would leave his junior season with a rolodex of college offers, but instead he was left to wonder how he could get his spark back.
“It just messed up my love for the game,” Barnett said of his junior season. “During that year it was just dead. My whole team, none of them really wanted to play, they all thought we were just gonna lose every game.”
Barnett and Broken Arrow finished that season 3-8 before most of the players that he’d grown up playing with decided to call it quits. The Vanderbilt receiver attributes his team falling apart to coaching and his teammates–who he says once loved football–getting “messed up in the head” because of it.
That season indicated to Barnett that he had a decision to make; stay and potentially miss out on a future in college football because of it, or leave everything he’d known in hopes that a college would come calling.
The then high school junior appeared to feel as if his only option was to leave and hope to get on Division-I radar by going to the school closest to his dad’s house and heading to Jenks High School for his senior season.
It was never going to be that easy for the Oklahoma native, though. When the Oklahoma High School Athletic Association caught wind of Barnett’s decision, it declared him ineligible due to what it perceived to be an illegal recruitment.
As Barnett stands off to the side in Vanderbilt’s indoor practice facility, he does so insisting that he was never recruited by Jenks. In the moment, Barnett and his family felt strongly enough about the decision to sue the OHSAA as a result of the decision and its effect on Barnett’s future to sue the OHSAA.
“The OHSAA had no right to make such an extreme decision without evidence,” Barnett’s attorney Tadd Bogan told Fox 23 News Tulsa at the time. “There is zero evidence that anybody from Jenks recruited Kayleb. The Barnett family did not receive anything of value, any promises. All it was, was a child that went to live with his dad and going to the school in the district that his dad lives in.”
Barnett was only held out for one game before his case was overturned and he could continue to pursue his Division-I dream, but his faith was tested as his status was up in the air. His love for football was coming back, but a cloud of uncertainty hung over his career.
At that point, Barnett’s only offer was from Lindenwood and he didn’t know whether he’d have the opportunity to show that he was worth other schools taking a chance on.
“It was pretty hard,” Barnett said. “It was like ‘dang, I’m about to lose my senior year.’”
All Barnett could do at that point was pray like his grandfather encouraged him to. “God’s got you,” his grandfather told him, “he’s gonna get you where you need to be.”
Barnett eventually heard the answer he wanted as his lawsuit was overturned after Jenks’ first game of the season and he was declared eligible. A few months later, Vanderbilt offensive coordinator Tim Beck stuck his neck out for Barnett and offered him. The perception around Barnett was that his size may prohibit him from playing at the level Beck asked him to, but Beck believed.
Barnett has never been shy about his belief in himself over the years, either. He’s used to being the smallest player on the field, but he’s never believed that his size has to define him or the future he has.
Perhaps some are surprised by Barnett’s quick rise–even he didn’t know that he’d be an every-week player this early–but he isn’t. He always thought he could do “something.” Since kindergarten, Barnett has known that he’s faster than just about everyone else on the field. Now, he knows that he can make an impact with that speed.
“He knows he belongs,” Lea said. “Kayleb is a resilient person. He believes in himself.”
Most of the corners he’ll see down the stretch of SEC play are significantly bigger and stronger than him, but Barnett isn’t counting himself out from continuing to make an impact on the back of his track speed that made him the Oklahoma 6A state champion in the 100 meters.
The Vanderbilt receiver has always played up. He’s always made an impact, too. He believes he’s built for this and he’s not putting any stock into opinions that say otherwise.
“I’ve always had a chip on my shoulder,” Barnett said. “I never thought that just because I was smaller than someone that he could guard me or that he was better than me."
Barnett is the rare example of a player transcending his supposed physical disadvantage and finding a way to fulfill his dream on the back of belief. He believes that he doesn't have to be the last one, either.
The Oklahoma native grew up seeing smaller receivers thrive despite their circumstances. Now, he wants to be an example to kids like him.
“You don’t gotta worry about what somebody says you can’t do,” Barnett said. “You can always do what you want to do.”
_(1)-b3e453dfe426b2dd4b83a12540ebdb37.jpeg "Joey Dwyer")
Joey Dwyer is the lead writer on Vanderbilt Commodores On SI. He found his first love in college sports at nearby Lipscomb University and decided to make a career of telling its best stories. He got his start doing a Notre Dame basketball podcast from his basement as a 14-year-old during COVID and has since aimed to make that 14-year-old proud. Dwyer has covered Vanderbilt sports for three years and previously worked for 247 Sports and Rivals. He contributes to Seth Davis' Hoops HQ, Southeastern 16 and Mainstreet Nashville.
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