Monday, December 17, 2007

Trevor for the Trifecta | by Pat

Back in September of 2006, Trevor Robinson was one of three recruits to get the first round of scholarship offers from Notre Dame. The other two recruits, Steven Filer and Michael Floyd, have already publicly committed to the Irish. On Thursday, Robinson committed to Charlie Weis during an in-home visit and made it a clean sweep of the initial recruiting targets.

"I found myself thinking about Notre Dame a lot," he said. "The first time around I feel like I kind of rushed things a bit. This time is completely opposite."
The first time that Robinson is referring to is his initial decision to publicly commit to his homestate Nebraska Cornhuskers back on April 7th. Robinson later decided to open up his recruitment again and take another look at ND and Michigan. After Callahan was fired from Nebraska, interim AD and Nebraska legend Tom Osbourne even made a personal trip to the Robinson household to try and sway Trevor back to the Cornhuskers. The move didn't work however and Trevor decided to switch to the Irish. As the lone uncommitted recruit at the recent ND football banquet with 14 committed players, I'm sure Robinson got a full court press from the coaches, players, and recruits. He left without a public commit, but left little doubt that he was likely to choose ND. Once Charlie visited on Thursday, Trevor made his choice public.

The 6'6" 305 pound Robinson also picked up offers from Michigan, Wisconsin, Boston College, and Iowa before quickly narrowing his list to the Cornhuskers, Irish, and Wolverines. As to the recruiting rankings, Robinson is yet another highly ranked recruit. On Rivals he is a 4-star Top 100 player, listed as #97 overall and the #3 overall offensive guard. His rankings on Scout are similar, checking in as a 4-star player, 98th overall and #6 among all offensive guards. On ESPN he is listed as the #9 overall guard.

Although he plays tackle for his high school team, Robinson is listed everywhere as a future guard and appears destined for that position along the Irish line. Here are a few short clips of Robinson from a summer Nike Camp where he was named OL MVP.

More good news is that Robinson is going to enroll early at Notre Dame, meaning he will join the team in just a few short weeks. He will pair up with defensive linemen Sean Cwynar, another early enrollee, and get a head start in the weight room and on the practice field. With a chance to compete in spring practice, Robinson should have an excellent chance to work himself into the two-deep at one of the guard spots for the fall.

Slowly but surely, the depth along the Irish offensive line is rounding into shape. Baring any changes, next year ND will return 5 offensive tackles (Young, Duncan, Webb, Romine, Dever) and welcome another freshman (Clelland). At guard, there will be 5 returning players (Turkovich, Olsen, Stewart, Bemenderfer, Nuss) and two new freshmen (Robinson, Golic). Center returns one player in Dan Wenger and will bring in freshman Braxston Cave. That's 15 offensive linemen on the roster for the fall and ND is still heavily recruiting offensive guard prospect Kenneth Page. The depth is still a touch on the young side with no 5th year seniors and only two seniors, but gone are the days where ND struggled to fill a two deep with scholarship players.