Robinson ready to compete for starting quarterback at TCU
TCU head coach Gary Patterson did something unusual, he said, when he brought sophomore quarterback Shawn Robinson with him to Big 12 Media Days.
“Usually I don’t bring a young player with me,” Patterson said. “I joked the other day with somebody (that) two years ago I didn’t bring Kenny Hill, and we went 6-6, and last year I brought him, and we went 11-3.”
Patterson added that he brought Robinson because of superstition, not because the sophomore is the new starter. Still, it’s hard to think it’s someone else. Robinson played in six games last year and in one of those, a 27-3 win over Texas Tech, he was the starter.
Robinson, though, wasn’t naming himself the starter yet. Instead, he is committing to proving each day why he should be the starter. One area he wants to improve at is being a leader, he said.
“I just go with the flow and try to be the best I can be,” he said. “You want your quarterback making plays. I need to work on everything to be the best me I can be.”
Robinson enrolled early at TCU as a highly-touted quarterback from DeSoto. A four-star recruit, Robinson was named the Gatorade Player of the Year in Texas during the 2016-17 school year and was the No. 2 dual-threat quarterback in the state and No. 7 in the country. He threw for 3,416 yards and 28 touchdowns and ran for another 1,439 yards and 19 touchdowns in helping DeSoto win a 2016 state championship.
The young quarterback found the right upperclassmen to show him how to be a college quarterback: Kenny Hill.
The TCU starting quarterback the last two years, Hill taught and mentored Robinson on all things about college life and college quarterback, especially the playbook.
“I learned so much,” Robinson said. “He’s a great guy. He showed me the ins and outs of what to do, what not to do.”
One part of college football Robinson said he feels blessed by is that he can tell the equipment managers what he needs replaced. Most of the time, it’s shoes, he said.
The quarterback knows that the 2018 Horned Frog starting quarterback will have big shoes to fill if TCU is to continue to have the success it enjoyed last year when it won 11 games.
Patterson noted that Robinson has the edge because he has proven himself. But the coach also cautioned not to discount sophomore quarterback Michael Collins, a transfer out of Connecticut who sat out last year, true freshman quarterback Justin Rogers from Bossier City, La., or Grayson Muehlstein, a fifth-year senior.
“(Collins is) a guy that can spin the ball, leader, great kid,” Patterson said. “Then you have Justin Rogers that was one of the best players in the state of Louisiana that came in January. Probably top to bottom, depth-chart wise, the best we’ve seen (in the quarterback room).”
The coach didn’t indicate when a starter will be named, only that consistency on a particular day of the week is key.
“I don’t judge quarterbacks in practice or stats or anything else,” he said. “I judge them on Saturdays.”
