Michigan’s speedy quarterback with a solid arm and catchy nickname is about to take his talents to a bigger stage.
Robinson and the Wolverines, coming off a season-opening rout over Connecticut, will play rival Notre Dame in its iconic stadium on network TV with millions tuning in Saturday to see if he can duplicate his first start.
“I just have to stay focused,” he said.
Good luck, Shoelace. Robinson created a buzz by running for 197 yards and a touchdown and throwing for 186 yards and another score in a 30-10 win against the Huskies.
His head-turning speed, savvy in the pocket and accurate arm encouraged 113,090 fans at the big House and embattled coach Rich Rodriguez.
College football’s winningest team desperately needed a star to emerge this season after a pair of miserable years stunted enthusiasm about the Wolverines. Doubts had been raised about whether Rodriguez’s spread offense could work for the team after Bo Schembechler and two of his assistants, Gary Moeller and Lloyd Carr, led the program to success for decades with offenses that were more traditional.
Rodriguez’s ways have worked at every stop he’s made from Glenville State to West Virginia.
Fighting Irish coach Brian Kelly is well aware of what is coming, but says Robinson makes Rodriguez’s scheme tough to stop.
“If you look at Rich Rodriguez’s quarterback situation, with Pat White obviously, he’s had some extraordinarily gifted quarterbacks,” Kelly said Sunday. “That’s what makes it the most difficult because you are isolating one-on-one a linebacker, a defensive end, on a quarterback who is not just a quarterback, he’s a great athlete.”
Connecticut coach Randy Edsall lost to Rodriguez in all four meetings when he led West Virginia and had a flashback of sorts during his fifth straight loss to him.
“I would say that Rich would feel very, very comfortable with this guy at quarterback because this is what Rich did when we played him at West Virginia with Pat White,” Edsall said. “I’m not saying that he’s Pat White because Pat was pretty good, but with time I think that this young man will have a chance to become a very good quarterback.”
Rodriguez acknowledged how Robinson played reminded him of some of White’s performances with the Mountaineers.
“Yeah, he runs fast,” Rodriguez said. “Very similar to Pat, Denard really showed a sense of feel and maturity. The game may be fast for everybody else, but it’s slowing down for him.”
Robinson said Connecticut tried to slow him down by taking off his shoes in pileups.
The sophomore from Deerfield Beach, Fla., has been known as Shoelace since he was 7 because he never ties the laces on his cleats. Robinson wasn’t known to all as Michigan’s no. 1 QB until he took the first snap Saturday at his 4.
He rolled left and threw a strike to the flat on his first pass and sprinted for 9 yards on his first run, setting up a 14-play, 96-yard touchdown drive. On his second possession, he ran for a 32-yard TD to put him over the 100-yard mark en route to setting a rushing record for a Michigan QB.
“I knew I had to play well or somebody else would take the snaps,” Robinson said.
Robinson carried the ball 29 times — mostly by design — and said a shot to his hip was what knocked him out of the game briefly.
“I’m a tough guy,” he said. “I’m not changing anything.”
Rodriguez said “stay tuned,” when asked if Robinson earned the start against Notre Dame. but barring an injury, seeing Devin Gardner or Tate Forcier under center for the first snap against Notre Dame would be stunning.
Rodriguez lost a school-record nine games in his debut season in Ann Arbor without a quarterback who fit his read-option scheme and was forced to play freshmen last year, turning a 4-0 start into a 5-7 flop.
UConn, though, was the first team to find out Rodriguez has a player under center who can do what he wants with his feet and arm.
“It’s a totally different team because of the quarterback,” Edsall said.
Veteran coach Jack Crowe leads JSU to huge victory
OXFORD, miss. (AP) — Jack Crowe has been coaching football for 40 years, but even he was at a loss to describe how Jacksonville State pulled off the unthinkable with a 49-48 double-overtime victory over Mississippi on Saturday.
“I don’t believe you could repeat the circumstances again in a hundred years,” Crowe said. “You just couldn’t.”
Not only was it undoubtedly the biggest win in school history, but the way it played out made the final score even more unbelievable.
The Gamecocks erased a 31-10 halftime deficit, marking the school’s biggest comeback win. Then in double overtime, Crowe gambled after his team scored a touchdown to pull to 48-47, electing to go for the 2-point conversion instead of kicking the extra point.
It turned out to be a decision that Jacksonville State fans, and Ole miss fans, will remember for a long time. it was the Rebels’ first loss to a Football Championship Subdivision team in school history.
On the final play, Jacksonville State freshman quarterback Coty Blanchard took the snap and had to retreat almost immediately because Ole miss brought a huge pass rush. Then in desperation, he threw what looked like a basketball hook shot into the end zone.
Calvin Middleton was right there to grab the football, falling just past the goal line to ignite a wild celebration at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Blanchard, who was Alabama’s high school mr. Football last season, admitted the play didn’t go exactly as planned.
Of course, that didn’t really matter after the result.
“We’ll take whatever we can get,” Blanchard said.
Jacksonville State used two quarterbacks with Blanchard and Marques Ivory. both made important plays during the upset, combining to go 22 of 36 for 252 yards and four touchdowns. The Gamecocks scored on their final six possessions, including touchdowns on the final five.
The win was especially sweet for Crowe, who’s been on the wrong end of an upset like this before. in 1992, he was the coach at Arkansas when the Razorbacks lost to The Citadel — which also played at a lower-level.
He was fired the next day.
Ole miss coach Houston Nutt, who has won 18 games over the past two seasons, won’t face the same fate. Nutt was the receivers coach under Crowe during that 1992 season.
“I normally wouldn’t do this, but I think of Houston as a brother,” Crowe said. “I think we took advantage of them while they’re still in the search to find themselves. I’ve just got a tremendous amount of respect for him and their program. That’s a quality football team that’s going to win a lot of games.”
Now the challenge is to deal with success while preparing to face Chattanooga on Saturday in Jacksonville, Ala. If there’s one thing the Gamecocks now know, it’s that anything can happen on the football field.
“I think we have to be real careful,” Crowe said.
But for now, there’s probably still some celebrating going on up in northeastern Alabama.
“Years from now, we’ll still be talking about it like it happened today,” receiver Jeffrey Cameron said.
After shocking loss, Mississippi tries to regroup
OXFORD, miss. (AP) — For the most part, things have gone quite well for Mississippi’s football program since coach Houston Nutt arrived on campus in November of 2007.
There have been two top-25 finishes. two Cotton Bowl victories. And two successful seasons to heal the wounds from the three disastrous Ed Orgeron years.
But the Nutt era suffered its first true black eye on Saturday, when the Rebels inexplicably lost to Jacksonville State 49-48 in double overtime. it was the first time Ole miss lost to a Football Championship Subdivision team in school history.
Nutt, like his players, appeared stunned immediately afterward. And that sick feeling hadn’t changed on Sunday, as the coaches dissected the ugly loss.
“It’s the toughest night and toughest film session I’ve ever had,” Nutt said.
Now, with 11 games left, his charge is to make sure it doesn’t define the season.
Although just about every facet of the Ole miss football team had issues in the loss, the defensive collapse was most stunning. Ole miss led 31-13 midway through the third quarter, but then Jacksonville State scored on its final six possessions, including touchdowns on the final five.
“I give all the credit to Jacksonville State for never giving up, but we played embarrassingly,” linebacker D.T. Shackelford said. “That’s not up to our standards at all.”
Mississippi defensive coordinator Tyrone Nix was given a three-year contract worth $500,000 per year in the offseason after his defense ranked among the top half of the Southeastern Conference in most major categories last season.
But that wasn’t the case on Saturday, when the Rebels had a load of missed tackles and busted assignments.
“We’re just better than that,” Nutt said. “That’s what’s frustrating.”
The Rebels were also hurt by three turnovers. One of them — a fumble by quarterback Nathan Stanley — led directly to a Jacksonville State touchdown. The Gamecocks had no turnovers.
Mississippi plays at Tulane on Saturday. It’s the first time the two teams will face off since 2000, when the Rebels won 49-20 in Oxford.
“I told them that this is when we find out what everybody is about,” Nutt said. “… There will be people on the outside trying to turn you into a locker room lawyer, but don’t listen to them. come back and just work.”
Nutt said he doesn’t expect to get much sleep the next few days, as the Rebels try to regroup from one of the most embarrassing losses in school history.
“The one thing I know about this group is you roll up your sleeve and you get back to work,” Nutt said. “You turn everything off, get lost in your work and try to get rid of that sick feeling.
“There’s only one way to do that. You’ve got to win the next one.”
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