ATHENS — Make no mistake about it: Travaris Robinson is at Georgia because Will Muschamp told him he needed to be.
Well, “suggested” might be a better word. But as we learned from the Bulldogs’ newest co-defensive coordinator Tuesday, Robinson tends to do what Muschamp suggests.
“His role looks like the same thing as when he was the head coach, and he was coming down my neck every single day,” Robinson said of Muschamp. “He’s in every single meeting with me, bothering me all the time. So, it’s crazy, man.”
Robinson, also known as “T-Rob,” had a perfectly good situation at Alabama. Sure, there was a little uncertainty with Nick Saban stepping down after 17 years as head coach. But Robinson, considered a world-class recruiter and every bit as good of a position coach, had been assured he had a place on coach Kalen DeBoer’s staff.
But before Robinson, 42, and his family could even give that option some long and careful consideration, Muschamp came calling.
Again.
“I’ve been with coach Muschamp a long time,” Robinson said Tuesday as he met with UGA reporters for the first time since joining the Georgia staff. “I (was a graduate assistant) for him at Auburn, worked with him at the University of Florida and at South Carolina. He’s a guy that’s been a mentor to me, a father figure. Everything I’ve done in my career, he always assisted me in.”
Most recently, that was joining the Bulldogs as co-defensive coordinator. That fact would have been an impossibility had the 53-year-old Muschamp not decided to relinquish that very title.
Even before Muschamp resigned that position at UGA, he called Robinson to run the current scenario past him. Muschamp told Robinson he was thinking about cutting back on his work commitments, though not altogether. He floated the idea of returning to an analyst role, with Robinson assuming his responsibilities as safeties coach and co-defensive coordinator alongside Glenn Schumann.
“He’s a big-time Georgia guy,” Robinson said of Muschamp. “Obviously he played here and has coached here. He wanted to pass the torch to somebody he felt could run things like he did. I was excited about that call.”
Indeed, Robinson is dyed in the wool of Muschamp’s coaching style and defensive philosophies. Those are, in turn, born out of Muschamp’s association with Saban and, more recently, Kirby Smart. To Robinson, that sounded like a much better idea than all the unknowns he would be experiencing under DeBoer.
So here they are, the whole gang together in one clearly-not-large enough defensive meeting room.
“My entire career, whether it’s been coach Muschamp or coach Saban being in the room, now I’m at the University of Georgia, and coach Smart’s in the back of the room,” Robinson said with a laugh. “He’s a DB guy. Coach Muschamp’s in the DB room. Coach Donte (Williams is) in the DB room. It’s like an (American Football Coaches Association) clinic every single day. But, at the end of the day, it’s been great.”
Entering his ninth season at the helm of the program, Smart has cobbled together what can be described only as an all-star defensive staff.
The bonus is that Muschamp is still very much a part of it. Though he executed a self-demotion under the guise of being able to spend more time watching his youngest son Whit play quarterback at Vanderbilt, Muschamp nevertheless has been an everyday and vocal presence on Georgia’s Woodruff Practice Fields.
Though it wasn’t the case at the time of Robinson’s hire, Muschamp’s move happened to come in a year when the NCAA relaxed it long-standing rule that analysts can’t actively coach players on the field during the week.
The result has been that Bulldogs defenders are receiving more instruction than they ever have. And for Georgia, that’s a particularly good thing as it navigates through a defensive backfield transition that will see at least three new starters take the field in 2024.
“Well, they definitely have different coaching styles,” junior cornerback Daylen Everette said of Robinson and Williams versus Muschamp and former cornerbacks coach Fran Brown. “At the end of the day, they have the same goals, which is to help us. That’s the most important thing.”
Another important aspect of the transition has been the marriage of Glenn Schumann and Robinson as co-defensive coordinators. The only member of the staff to have been an on-field assistant for Smart all of his Georgia tenure, Schumann is sharing coordinator duties with his third assistant coach. Before Muschamp, Schumann shared that responsibility with Dan Lanning, now head coach at Oregon.
Based on interview opportunities he’s had the past couple of years, the same career track appears to be ahead for Schumann. And so, it would follow, for Robinson.
Together now for six months, Schumann and Robinson seem to be getting along famously.
“I’ve always had the utmost respect for him, both as a coach and as a recruiter, and as a person,” Schumann said of Robinson, who he hadn’t worked with until now. “Now, Will spoke incredibly highly about him, even before this opportunity came up. And, you know, I trust Will and his opinion with just about everything, and it’s been awesome.”
Robinson raved about working with Schumann.
“I call him, like, ‘Rain Man,’” Robinson said, referring to the 1980s film with Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman. “He’s very, very intelligent, man, very intelligent. Sees everything, has really good ideas and does a really good job in front of the guys. … He’s the best on a computer I’ve ever seen. But he’s a great guy.”
In a lot of ways, having Robinson to coach safeties and bark out orders to the secondary is not all that different from Muschamp. Robinson’s first big break in coaching came when Muschamp brought him in as defensive backs coach at Florida in 2011. When Muschamp’s tenure with the Gators ended, they ended up on the Auburn staff in 2015.
Robinson followed Muschamp again when he got a second head-coaching go-around at South Carolina. It has been only the past three years when Robinson made his own way at Miami and Alabama that the two haven’t been on the same staff.
When it comes to on-field instruction, the same sayings tend to come out of both coaches’ mouths.
“I’m not coming up with anything new,” Robinson said with a laugh. “I am who I am, and I learned from who I learned from. … But I’ve got a different delivery. Coach Muschamp and I say some of the same stuff, but we say it a little different. I’ve got a little nicer side than he’s got sometimes.”
