Robinson’s focus: Keep recruits home
Assistant used to sway kids away from South Florida in other stops
New Miami Hurricanes defensive backs coach Travaris Robinson has had his share of recruiting victories in South Florida with three different SEC schools over the past decade.
Whether it be a Quincy Wilson, Brandon Powell or Marcus Roberson when he was at Florida from 2011-14, Carlton Davis or Tim Irvin in 2015 at his alma mater Auburn or Keir Thomas or Rosendo Louis in the years since at South Carolina, Robinson mastered the art of coming down to his home region and pulling prospects away.
His recruiting pitch may need some alterations now. He’ll be working to convince kids to stay home at UM for college instead of going elsewhere. As someone
moving from Columbia, South Carolina back to his hometown of Miami, it’s no surprise he’s thinking in terms of real estate in how his approach will be different.
“I guess it’d be the difference between buying the house and selling the house,” said Robinson, popularly known as T-Rob. “When you’re buying the house, you’re looking for all the stuff wrong to get the price down. When you sell the house, you try to make it look the best you can so you can charge people more money.”
He’ll have to make his new pitch as a one-time Miami Coral Park High all-state standout in the late 1990s who himself did not choose to attend UM and instead went away to Auburn for college.
“I can kind of utilize my experiences,” he explains. “Like, why didn’t I come to the University of Miami is a question that, if I was a parent, I would ask. ‘Did you have an opportunity to come?’ Yeah. ‘Why didn’t you come?’
“Well, the first reason I didn’t come was because I didn’t give it a realistic chance because I always thought that it was so close to my house that I knew about it. When, in actuality, I didn’t know about it. My first time really walking on campus was when I got here this time. I didn’t know how beautiful campus was, to be quite honest with you, and how much of a campus it looked like when you step inside the doors. That’s one of the things that I will tell them.”
He also plans to explain to recruits that the independence of going far away from home and your family for college isn’t always what it’s hyped up to be.
“I went 10 hours away to go to college, and then after the games, I would walk out of the stadium and I’ll see other people’s parents giving them hugs, hanging out with them, doing all that stuff, but my parents weren’t able to come that day. It was a financial burden to be able to come 10 hours, get a hotel, rent a car, and they didn’t get a chance to do that much.
“I missed that part of it, and it wasn’t fair because my mom never missed a game in my entire life until I got to college, and she couldn’t afford to come. That wasn’t fair to do to her. That’s one of the things that I regret in my process in not giving my mom the equal time and the equal amount of opportunity to come to the games like she had come when I was in Little League and I was in high school.”
South Florida has always been known to be flush with athleticism and talent at skill positions, but Robinson, in his early evaluation of future classes, is impressed with how the area is developing linemen.
“The surprise is big people,” he said. “We got a lot of big people around our area in these tri-counties that we’re very excited about, and the key to the drill is to keep the big people staying home. If we can do that, we have a chance to be really, really good — and not just next year. It’s going to be three to four years that we’re going to have a chance to be really good because big people change the complexion of a ball game. You win up front.”
Of course, recruiting is only half the battle in college coaching, and Robinson looks forward to the player development aspect with his players in the secondary.
“Evaluate talent, and then when you get the talent, develop the talent so it can be successful,” Robinson said.