Standing tall, or getting kicked while he’s down?

For a guy who couldn’t find the wide-open space between the goal posts when UCLA needed it most, kicker Kip Smith had no problem hitting the highway.

While the rest of his teammates and coaches went across the field to congratulate Houston after losing, 38-34, to the Cougars, Smith ran off to the locker room.

A school official raced after him, presumably to make sure he wasn’t wide right when he got to the door and didn’t hurt himself.

A few minutes later, Coach Rick Neuheisel stood before the media talking about the importance of accountability at UCLA.

Now ordinarily I don’t talk to kickers, especially kid kickers, but Neuheisel had just said, “This is a disappointment. What you do when you’re disappointed is you rise up.

“You’re accountable and, by your actions and how you carry yourself, you tell your teammates that you’re in this for the duration.”

So I thought I’d give Smith a chance and see if he has what it’s going to take to rise again after missing a field-goal try and having a point-after attempt blocked in the final minutes to sabotage UCLA’s comeback bid.

As it was, many of his teammates were already muttering and looking at him like he was some kind of tackling dummy, some of them no doubt forgetting their own mistakes earlier in the game.

But when I approached Smith in the locker room, fully believing he would stand tall and earn praise here for doing so, he was whisked away by Mike Linn.

One of the school’s PR reps said Linn is the Bruins’ athletic performance coach, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt and thought maybe he was taking Smith outside to try that 32-yard field goal again.

Basketball coaches do it all the time, bringing their players back on the court after a loss and running them through a practice. I think it’s safe to say right now Smith could use some extra work.

But as soon as Smith and Linn made it to the door, Linn started pushing Smith in the back, as if to help him make a getaway, or maybe he was just telling him, get away.

When I stopped Linn, he explained Smith needed to see his mommy and daddy, and there’s the rub, isn’t it?

This is college football, these are just kids and so just how accountable are you supposed to hold them when they fall on their keisters in front of everyone?

Big alumni bucks are at stake, the future employment of the head coach and his assistants as well, but where is the line drawn when it all goes badly?

If a kid wants to run off to mommy and daddy, is he off limits? We might never see the starting quarterback again.

Is TV wrong to keep the camera on a college kicker as he kneels on the sideline, a hand to his face, rubbing his eyes?

Neuheisel, while emphasizing accountability, had just told the media about a communication mix-up between quarterback Richard Brehaut and someone on the sideline.

“But I’m not going to name names,” he said.

Huh?

Every player on the field has his name across his back, so naming the goat on any play that goes badly is as simple as watching the replay.

So how do you not name names if accountability is something prized at UCLA?

The communication mix-up had derailed the Bruins’ attempt to score a touchdown, eventually stopping them and requiring Smith to perform on fourth and 11.

We know he wasn’t up to the challenge, but was it Brehaut who was confused with what was coming in from the sideline, or was it Neuheisel or another coach who messed up?

“I know exactly who it is,” Neuheisel said, so why isn’t the culprit identified, same as the kicker?

When a quarterback goofs up, he almost always stands in front of his locker to take responsibility for his poor play. Poor play happens in almost every game, and someone almost always is asked to explain himself.

Is a kicker different? But that’s the joke in football, isn’t it? Kickers are different.

Maybe so, but this one better grow up or take a seat on the bench. Too harsh? Is that going too far in analyzing a college football game gone wrong?

Just what does accountability mean at this level? Is it OK, as Neuheisel suggested after the game, that Smith will now have to compete to keep his job?

But everyone else should feel sorry for the kid and leave him alone? If a college kid drops a potential game-winning touchdown catch, do you ask him about it?

There’s always been kind of an unwritten rule in sports writing that you don’t criticize a high school player as much as a college athlete, or a college athlete as much as a professional.

But if a game, hyped as it has been all week and with so many people interested in its outcome, swings on the leg of a college sophomore, what’s fair game?

Isn’t it telling that he couldn’t stand tall, and yet in his role as kicker he’ll probably be called on again to settle a game? Is that too harsh?

Smith was a redshirt freshman last year, so Saturday’s kick into a howling wind with 2 minutes 29 seconds remaining was the first field-goal attempt of his career. And his first miss.

Maybe he knows, maybe he doesn’t, but according to an email from the school’s sports information department, UCLA’s outstanding kicker Kai Forbath missed the first two field-goal attempts in his Bruins career.

No word, though, if he needed his mommy and daddy.

To the credit of UCLA’s sports information department, a rep convinced Smith to leave his and talk to the media.

His answer to almost every question was the same.

“I’ll have to look at the film,” he said.

But then what would you expect from a kid?

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t.j.simers@latimes.com