STARKVILLE — No member of Mississippi State’s unbeaten football team gets a reaction quite like Josh Robinson.
Ask any teammate or MSU coach about the wise-cracking, fun-loving, tackle-shedding, ankle-breaking running back, and the reactions are usually priceless.
There are grins, nodding heads, shoulder shrugs. There are blank looks, hearty laughs, momentary pauses. No one has quite figured out a way to describe MSU’s 5-foot-9, 210-pound dynamo of a running back, but perhaps it’s MSU quarterback Dak Prescott, who teams with Robinson to form the SEC’s best 1-2 rushing combination, who gets closest.
“He’s just Josh,” said Prescott, like Robinson a native of Louisiana. “That’s who he is. He’s always joking, having a good time. He’s fun to be around. At the same time, he’s an amazing running back. The way he gets out of tackles, it’s unbelievable to watch. He will spin, dive, jump over people…He’s just a great running back.”
That he is. But Robinson, always smiling, always quick with a joke, is much more than that for the No. 1 football team in the country. If Prescott, currently the odds-on favorite to win the Heisman Trophy, is the engine that drives MSU’s offense, which ranks No. 9 nationally at 531 yards per game, then Robinson is the fuel.
On the heels of a virtuoso performance at Kentucky that featured 198 yards, two touchdowns and a pair of jaw-dropping runs, Robinson currently leads the Southeastern Conference in rushing yards (887), rushing touchdowns (10, tied with Prescott) and yards per carry (7.3, good for sixth nationally).
But to sum up Robinson as simply one of the country’s best running backs and to limit his impact on the Bulldogs to his incredible knack for gaining tough yards is to sell the Franklinton, Louisiana native short. He’s much more than that. On a Bulldogs’ team that prides itself on playing loose and relaxed, Robinson is the epitome of both, the loosest and the most relaxed player on the field at all time. It’s a disposition that has served him well. So who is Josh Robinson?
Just ask him.
‘I’m the running back’
When Robinson walks into a room, be it the media room at MSU’s football facility or any other space on campus, he immediately owns it. It is that way today for the SEC’s current Offensive Player of the Week, and it was that way four years ago, when a lightly recruited, under-sized tailback walked into one of MSU’s premier recruiting events and immediately made a name for himself. Entering MSU’s Big Dawg Camp, held each summer, Robinson walked up to anyone who would listen and said “I’m Josh Robinson, I’m the new running back.”
“I just had to let them know I was coming,” said Robinson. “When I got my offer, it was such a blessing. I knew right then I was going to do big things here. Everybody else needed to know it, too.”
MSU head coach Dan Mullen saw things other recruiters did not see in Robinson. Watching film of the then 190-pound running back, Mullen saw a burst and a refusal to be tackled that he believed translated well to the rigors of SEC football. So at that camp, the one where Robinson self-assuredly introduced himself to anyone and everyone, Mullen extended a scholarship offer.
“That team, they had a couple of great looking kids,” said Mullen, referring to the 2010 Franklinton High School Demons, who boasted four-star recruit Terrence Magee, now at LSU, and Robinson. “But we liked Josh. We loved him on film so we brought him in, and we loved him at camp. A lot of times, a guy like Josh can fly under-the-radar, but he didn’t fly under the radar for us. We knew what he was capable of.”
Not bad for a kid from the hard-scrabble town of Bogalusa, Louisiana, which sits hard by the Mississippi line in Washington Parish. Most kids from Bogalusa grow uo play for the Lumberjacks, Bogalusa’s high school football team, before eventually giving in and working in the town’s paper mill. But that wasn’t the story that would unfold for Robinson. Instead, he would learn the game of football there before being told that he wasn’t big enough, or strong enough, even at the high school level.
“Bogalusa High told me I wasn’t good enough to play for them,” said Robinson. “So I said ‘Ok.’ I went to Franklinton and the rest is history.”
Bogalusa’s miss foretold the fortunes of like-minded college coaching staff, who passed on Robinson because he was too small, or because he was too much of an academic risk.
Like MSU, nearby Franklinton, a town of just 4,000 reaped the benefits. Almost immediately, Robinson teamed with Magee to form a dynamic backfield, one that led the Demons to the 2010 Louisiana High School Activities Association Class 4A state championship. That run included a win over Haughton, quarterbacked by Prescott.
In Franklinton, Robinson flashed the carefree, forever-smiling personality that has made him a favorite of TV cameras during his MSU career.
“He’s an incredible kid to have around,” said Franklinton coach Shane Smith. “One, he never stop talking. Ever. And he’s never in a bad mood. He’s just one of those goofy, joking guys that makes football fun.”
Robinson’s run at Franklinton High School eventually led to his signing with MSU, an event he said would have happened even if bigger schools, like in-state favorite LSU, had come calling.
“That was my blessing,” Robinson said of the MSU scholarship offer. “I couldn’t even think about other schools, because if I did, I would have missed my blessing. Can’t do that.”
From show-stealer to photo-bomber
Robinson’s personality remains. Four years after signing with MSU, Robinson has become one of the nation’s top running backs. A year ago, the 5-foot-9 tailback known as “Bowling Ball” to teammates and MSU fans patiently waited his turn to be the Bulldogs’ premier back, averaging a team-best 6.2 yards per carry in limited action.
Now the unquestioned starter after the graduation of senior Ladarius Perkins, Robinson has put his own stamp on MSU’s incredible rise to No. 1, as the bowling ball leaves no pins standing in his wake.
That much was evident in Saturday’s 198-yard explosion against Kentucky, and it was also present when Robinson went for 197 yards and a touchdown in a 34-29 win at LSU earlier this season.
“Just tough, tough yards,” said Mullen of Robinson. “So many yards after contact, Josh did a good job of fighting for us. He put our team on his back, and he put their team on his back, too.”
But with Robinson, it’s never just about production. It’s also about that smile, that positive effect on those around him. Such was on full display in the aftermath of Saturday win, when Mullen was being interviewed by CBS sideline reporter Allie LaForce in the coach’s customary postgame talk. While Mullen labored to hear LaForce’s question, there was Robinson, standing directly behind the two, flashing a cheesy grin while gesturing for the camera. It was the perfect photo bomb, and it was vintage Robinson.
But to Mullen, that fun-loving attitude has been only a part of Robinson’s emergence this season. Most importantly, Robinson’s biggest step forward from his sophomore season to his junior year has been his ability to switch from the grinning, cackling jokester to someone who puts everything aside in order to get better as a football player.
“He is a great guy to be around,” said Mullen of Robinson. “He is a lot of fun to be around because he is always smiling and upbeat. He is mature with that as well. There is a big difference with being funny and being a clown. Guys that are funny know when to be serious and guys that are clowns are clowns all the time. He is funny now. He used to be a clown. That makes you appreciate him even more because you know when the time comes he is going to focus and get his job done while still having that great personality that lifts everyone up around him.”
That uplifting nature exists in every facet of life for Robinson. It’s present when he’s on the field, and when he’s off, evidenced by his relationship with Mullen. Often, on bye weeks or other down times for the Bulldogs, MSU’s starting running back will call Mullen on the phone and ask to come over.
“I will just be sitting on the couch and the phone will ring,” said Mullen with a smile. “It will be Josh and he will say ‘What are you doing?’ and he will ask to come over. I’ll say ‘Ok, come on over.’
Then he will get here and he’ll go out in the yard and play touch football with the kids for an hour.”
It’s a friendliness that belies Robinson’s violent nature when he’s on the football field with a ball in his hands. Against Kentucky, Robinson proved impossible to stop, as he racked up 146 yards after contact, which included a highlight-reel third-quarter run that featured two changes of direction and seven broken tackles.
Asked if he was surprised by his teammates’ incredible run, MSU linebacker Beniquez Brown just shook his head.
“We have to tackle him all the time in practice, and it’s hard for us, too,” said Brown. “Nothing he does surprises me.”
When MSU lines up to put its No. 1 ranking on the line for the second time this Saturday in a 6:15 p.m. game against Arkansas, Robinson will likely take his customary pounding. He will likely get hit early and often, and like the games at Kentucky and LSU, he’s also likely to shake tacklers off left and right.
And he’ll wear a smile while doing so.
“Always,” said Robinson. “That’s who I am. I am going to have fun, regardless. And the more we keep winning, the more fun I’m going to have.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brandon Walker on Twitter @BWonStateBeat
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 35 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
