Syracuse Football Report Card: Who shined for the Orange against Pitt?

Robinson has been a welcome edition to the Syracuse defense, and one reason for the improvement that you have seen out of the unit this season. Robinson transferred in to Syracuse from a JUCO school right before the start of camp. At 6’4 and 250-pounds, the Texas native brings SEC type size to the defensive end position for Syracuse. In fact, Robinson was a Texas A&M commit out of high school with offers from Michigan and college football’s best.

He has been thrust into action early, and is one of Syracuse’s only healthy and best pass rushers. The injuries to Kendall Coleman and Josh Black have forced Robinson into a starting role, and against Pitt he responded. Robinson recorded five tackles including one sack that forced a fumble, which Pitt recovered. Robinson got a great jump off the ball, flying past the lineman and sacking Pitt quarterback Max Browne, injuring him and forcing him to miss the remainder of the game.

He was getting a large number of snaps at defensive end and five tackles with a sack are very respectable stats. This guy is just getting adjusted to playing at the Division I level, and he has only played six games, but I would like to see his production go up from here on out.

With Black, Coleman, and Robinson all only Sophomores for Syracuse, they could have a trio of impact players at the defensive end position for years to come. Coleman was great in just one-quarter of play against LSU recording two sacks until he was injured. This is an extremely talented and young position group that will be fun to watch grow over the next few seasons.

Robinson just needs to continue to record the occasional sack, pursue the run, and make the quarterback’s life difficult. A breakout game could be on the horizon in the near future this season for Robinson. It would be great if that came Friday night.