ATHENS — Baby Chubb.
That’s the nickname that quickly sprouted for Branson Robinson after his performance against Auburn last Saturday. The freshman running back got a lot of work late in the Bulldogs’ 42-10 win. When it was over, there was Robinson’s name atop the postgame stat sheet – 12 carries, 98 yards rushing, 8.2-yard average, 1 touchdown. On Monday, he was named the SEC Freshman of the Week for that performance.
In fact, if not for a 2-yard loss on an earlier run, Robinson would have become Georgia’s first 100-yard rusher this season. As it was, Robinson became the first freshman since Sony Michel in 2014 to carry the ball more than 10 times and rush for more than 95 yards.
“Branson ran out there (into the huddle) and I was like, ‘Hmm, OK, let’s go, man,’” Georgia quarterback Stetson Bennett said. “Branson broke like a million tackles.”
Robinson, a 5-foot-10, 220-pound freshman from Canton, Miss., has drawn comparisons to former Bulldogs running back Nick Chubb since Robinson first committed to the Bulldogs a year before signing with them in the Class of 2022. The physical similarities were impossible to ignore, with Robinson’s powerful, squatty build and affinity for lifting massive amounts of weight in the gym.
But, to date, Robinson hadn’t been able to simulate Chubb on the football field. Fourth on the Bulldogs’ running back depth chart, he simply hasn’t been able to get many opportunities to get on the field.
That changed Saturday. Between the Bulldogs’ commitment to run the football and a groin injury that sidelined junior Kendall Milton, Robinson found himself in the game earlier. He got his first carry in the first quarter, and it was a 9-yard run. He had a 23-yard carry in the second quarter. His other carries all came in the second half, including eight in the fourth quarter.
“Really big for us,” coach Kirby Smart said of Robinson’s day. “He was a guy we felt like all week we had to get more opportunities for him because he’s been running the ball really well in practice. He gives us a little bit of a burst, and he was able to get some carries with Kendall dinged up. I thought he did a really nice job.”
Branson Robinson became the first true freshman #Georgia running back to rush for 95+ plus yards in his first 10+ carry performance since Sony Michel in 2014 #GoDawgs pic.twitter.com/jL4q3RKSge
— Jonathan Williams (@Dr_JWill) October 9, 2022
How much more we’ll see out of Robinson remains to be seen. Smart said he expects Milton to be back this Saturday, when the No. 1-ranked Bulldogs play host to Vanderbilt. Meanwhile, junior Daijun Edwards is coming off the first three-touchdown day of his career, and senior Kenny McIntosh remains RB1.
That said, Robinson might be hard to keep off the field. Smart said Saturday’s production is a glimpse of what the Bulldogs have been seeing in practice.
“It’s not like he hadn’t been talented the whole time he’s here,” Smart said of Robinson, who earned some five-star ratings as a recruiting prospect and was the consensus No. 1 player in Mississippi. “He’s earned the opportunity through the work he’s done, and you gain confidence through what you do in practice. I think he continues to grow (and needs) attention to detail in terms of pickups on checks and protection, and protecting the ball and making good run reads. He’s done a lot of those things. We certainly felt strongly enough about the job he’s done in practice to get him some in-game carries.”
It was one Robinson carry in particular that had the internet buzzing with Chubb comparisons. With 1:30 remaining, the Bulldogs were simply running out the clock of yet another blowout of Auburn when backup quarterback Carson Beck handed Robinson the ball at right guard.
Finding no room to run there, Robinson cut hard to the outside. A block by wide receiver De’Nylon Morrissette gave Robinson some open field. When Auburn defensive back J.D. Rhym shot over to make the tackle, Robinson trucked him. Fellow DB Zion Puckett arrived at almost the same time and also bounced off. Puckett and two other Tigers finally corralled a twisting and spinning Robinson on the Georgia sideline. By then, he’d recorded a 30-yard gain.
Though Robinson was unable to get loose for a touchdown, the run was remarkably reminiscent of one Chubb made against Clemson for a 47-yard touchdown at Sanford Stadium in 2014. That was Chubb’s now-famous first career TD at Georgia in which Chubb lost his shoe breaking a tackle on the way to the end zone.
Smart has been hesitant to endorse the comparisons of Robinson to Chubb. After all, Chubb might be the NFL’s best back now, and he left Georgia as one of the Bulldogs’ greatest running backs. One reporter on Monday also compared Robinson to former UGA star Thomas Brown.
But if Robinson keeps running the ball like he did Saturday, the Nick Chubb 2.0 proclamations will continue. “I’ll let you guys do all the comparing,” Smart said during his weekly news conference Monday. “I’m happy with who Branson is. Branson’s his own person. Everybody tries to give everybody a style of running back, but I don’t know that you got a body of work large enough to know. We probably do because we get to see him each and every day. But I don’t think giving him comparisons is fair to him or the others.
“I do think he’s going to be a really good football player. He has great burst and acceleration, and he has great toughness.”
Robinson was part of a Georgia rushing attack that gashed Auburn to the tune of a season-high 292 yards Saturday. If not for a 9-yard sack of Bennett, the Bulldogs would have recorded their first 300-plus-yards rushing game since Missouri for 316 in 2020.
“That was cool to watch,” Bennett said of Saturday’s display.
