Branson Robinson showing signs of improvement, Kirby Smart says

Georgia‘s running back room has been one of the strengths of their team over the past few seasons, but it’s been more of a weakness this spring. Injuries to Kendall Milton, Daijun Edwards, and Andrew Paul have resulted in a thin running back room for the Bulldogs during spring practice, but has also given some of their younger talent more opportunities. One of those running backs is sophomore Branson Robinson, who showed some flashes of greatness in his freshman season last year and is continuing to do so this spring according to head coach Kirby Smart.

“Well you see more things he needs to improve on, because you get to see more things period,” Smart said. “But you also see flashes of explosiveness, burst, of improvement. He’s had a couple runs where he’s really shown flexibility to drop his pads, take on contact, keep going.”

Robinson was a highly rated recruit out of Germantown high school in Madison, Mississippi, rated the No. 2 running back in the country and the No. 73 overall prospect in the 2022 class according to On3’s Industry Rankings. Running the ball has come natural for him in his transition to the collegiate level, but Smart believes there’s still some other areas of his game he can improve upon.

“Knock on wood his ball security has been good, his pass pro could use some improvement but he’s worked hard on that, he had a couple really good pickups today. So I think these opportunities for growth for him have been really good,” Smart said.

Robinson’s strength and athleticism are known facets of his game that he can hopefully translate to pass protection. He made the most of his limited carries last season, rushing for 330 yards and three touchdowns on just 68 carries.

Versus Auburn last season he made a splash, rushing for 98 yards and a touchdown on a career high 12 carries. And in Georgia’s national championship blowout win over TCU Robinson found the end zone twice, rushing for two touchdowns along with his 42 yards on the ground. Robinson is continuing to build on the solid foundation he built last season, and hopefully he can continue to do so heading into his sophomore season.

“You know he got lots of opportunities last year to run the ball where maybe you guys didn’t see it, but we saw it, he did it in practice. But he didn’t get as much pass protection and routes out of the backfield as he’s getting now so it’s given him a chance to really put himself in position to have a great fall,” Smart said.