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FOLLOWING IN DAD’S FOOTSTEPS
2/21/2023 1:57:00 PM | Football, General
Christian Robinson Left His SEC Roots to Join Aranda’s Staff
By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
A four-star linebacker at Greater Atlanta Christian School who missed his freshman season because of a back injury, Christian Robinson remembers getting into it with his high school coach after "one of the first games that I didn't perform well."
What made it tougher was that Ken Robinson, the defensive coordinator and his dad, was also his ride home.
"It was hard early on to understand because that's dad, and there would be a lot of rough Saturdays," said Robinson, who was named Baylor's inside linebackers coach at the end of the 2022 season. "We tried to watch all the film before the noon (college) kickoff games. I didn't know the difference for a long time. But I learned once I got into it that he loved me."
Now in his 11th year as a college coach, including the last five seasons as a full-time assistant at Florida (2018-21) and Auburn (2022), that's the same tough-love approach Robinson uses with his players.
"I tell them, 'I'm not your dad, but I'm going to love you,''' he said. "I had a hard conversation with one of them this morning about where to finish on the line, why it's important and what it produces. I had my dad in my ear doing that. And Coach (Mark) Richt was a father to many of my teammates at Georgia that didn't have one.
"Sometimes, these guys haven't been told that they've been loved. Look, we're going to have hard days and we're going to have to tell them hard truths. But we get to be that role, and I had a great example of that every day."
Born into a football family – his dad also played linebacker for the Washington Redskins – Christian said he has "always been a part of a locker room."
"I rode to school every day with him, so I'd have to wait until the locker room was cleared out and everybody went home," Christian said. "I tell the guys all the time, there's nothing better than having a spot in the locker room, because you belong, you are part of a team. And when I got done playing, that was probably something I knew immediately, that if I'm not a part of this, it's going to eat at me."
With scholarship offers from the likes of Alabama, Clemson and North Carolina, Robinson signed with Georgia out of high school. Part of back-to-back SEC East Division championship teams, he played 51 games with 17 starts from 2009-12, racking up 159 tackles, 22.5 tackles for loss and 4.5 sacks for the Bulldogs.
But when he suffered a crack bone in his foot in the second game of his junior season, "I knew my football career was not going to be the same," he said.
"That was when I started dropping hints to some of the coaches like, 'Hey, I'd love to come back if this doesn't work out. This is where my passion is.' I went to the St. Louis Rams (as an undrafted free agent), got a cup of coffee and came back home at 22 years old and a week out of a mini-camp and started trying to learn how to be a grad assistant."
The first year as a defensive GA at his alma mater was "kind of scary," Christian said. Without a blueprint or manual to go by, "I didn't even know where to sit in a meeting. I knew to bring something to write with, I knew how to take notes. But finding out, when we go out there, we're going to continue to work and develop and mold those guys."
It helped having mentors like Mike Macdonald, the current Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator; and Kirk Olivadotti, now the Green Bay Packers' linebackers coach.
"I had a lot of great examples around me and people that I care about," Christian said. "(Olivadotti) had worked in the NFL for a long time . . . and getting to work beside him as a grad assistant, he treated me like an equal. And I loved that. There are so many different ways to do it. I want to do it where I'm going to drive you, I'm going to be hard on you. But it can be a relationship, it can be a classroom setting. And that's what I've enjoyed."
After two years at Georgia, Christian thought about getting out of football at that point and moving to Nashville with his then-girlfriend and now wife, Kaley.
"The day that I was supposed to sign a contract to go to work in social media marketing for this company, I get a call from Hugh Freeze (at Ole Miss)," he said. "I literally hadn't heard from anybody, and then the day I'm about to sign – I have it in hand – I get a call from Hugh Freeze. 'We have a GA spot, would you be interested in coming?' I just wanted to be somewhere that I could learn."
Kaley followed Christian to Oxford at the end of his second season at Ole Miss, and "two weeks later the defensive staff got let go," he said. "She got indoctrinated real quick to the fact that things can happen that are out of your control. It wasn't easy, but nothing's ever easy, no matter where you work."
After one year at Mississippi State, where he got the chance to coach the linebackers by himself, Christian was in limbo again when head coach Dan Mullen and defensive coordinator Todd Grantham made the move to Florida.
"My thought was, they're not bringing me, I'm getting left," he said. "I never thought in a million years I'd get to go to Florida. . . . When I got that call, I wasn't crying, but it was like everything that you had hoped for, this made it all worth it."
In his first season as a full-time assistant coach, Robinson helped the Gators win 10 games and beat seventh-ranked Michigan, 41-15, in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl. He also helped tutor Jonathan Greenard, a transfer from Louisville who led the SEC with 9.5 sacks and 15.5 tackles for loss before being drafted in the third round by the Houston Texans.
During his four years at Florida, the Gators had an overall record of 36-16, made four-consecutive bowl game appearances and were fourth nationally in sacks, trailing only Alabama, Clemson and Pittsburgh. When Grantham was fired after a 40-17 loss to South Carolina, Robinson took over as the DC for the last four games of the 2021 season.
"I didn't know if we were going to move or not," said Robinson, who moved to Auburn as linebackers coach and defensive run-game coordinator. "You learn different things everywhere you go. Auburn is a great place and a place that will always mean a lot to me."
Going through another mid-season transition, Robinson saw Auburn grad Cadillac Williams take over when head coach Bryan Harsin was fired after the first eight games of the 2022 season.
"We lost some games that I wish we would have had back, and it was difficult," Christian said. "But in that transition, it wasn't so much about the head coach as just seeing what a team can decide to do. Nobody thought we could beat anybody, and we beat a team that was pretty special on paper (Texas A&M, 13-10).
"Getting to see that, it changed something in me about coaching because you get to see what it's really about. People say it's talent, people say it's your scheme. But if you can get a group to be in alignment, give more effort longer, more detailed, that's what it is. And it's not about us, it's always about (the players)."
Job searching for the second time in as many years, Christian said he was looking for "a place that is going to live out what it says it's about, and is going to allow its leader to be that as well."
"I've moved three times in a year and a half," he said, "and I want to be somewhere where when I can talk about family and building something and being a part of something that I can say it and not . . . we've got a job to do and that will always be the case, but where the people in the building, in their heart, believe what they're saying."
That's when he thought back to his interactions on the recruiting trail when Dave Aranda was at LSU and "we just ended up bumping into each other."
"We went to the same school for the same practice," he said of the then-LSU defensive coordinator. "You meet a lot of people, and first impressions can mean a lot, but just his demeanor. In my mind, I thought, if I ever get a chance to work for him, that I would run and do it. Why he's had success and why people want to be around him is because he is one of the most genuine people I've ever met."
Hired on December 30, the week after Baylor's season ended with a loss to Air Force in the Armed Forces Bowl, Christian joins a young defensive staff that includes defensive coordinator Matt Powledge, cornerbacks coach Kevin Curtis, outside linebackers coach Caleb Collins and defensive line coach Dennis Johnson.
"I've always been the 'young guy,' so it throws me off that there's actually guys around my age," said Robinson, who will turn 33 in May.
"It's easy to feel detached when you don't know what (the players) are into. I do notice that I'm getting older, but I'm still able to keep up and understand what they're going through. They're still figuring it out. I'm still trying to figure it out, but I have a 10-year head start on a lot of them. We can connect because we're dealing with a lot of the same things, as adults."
Aranda said Robinson is "one of the top young coaches in the country, whose commitment to relationships and the success of the young men he coaches – on and off the field – is an ideal fit for our program."
Robinson inherits an inside linebackers room that includes returning starter Matt Jones and transfers Mike Smith from Liberty and Josh White from LSU, along with Brooks Miller, Carmello Jones and Jeremy Evans.
"There were some that I watched, just to get acquainted," Christian said. "But the beauty of when you go to a new place, I told every single one of them, 'You all get a fresh start. Whoever you want to be, you get to be.' I think that gives life to a ton of guys because I'm coaching our walk-ons as hard as Matt Jones. I was a guy that nobody thought was going to play, but was on two SEC East (championship) teams. You get to be whoever you want to be."
Christian and his wife, Kaley, met when they were both students at Georgia and got married July 3, 2021.
"She saw those first couple of years as a GA, and that's all she knew," Christian said. "And I think that's helped us connect, particularly with the younger coaches, because she remembers being at the very bottom. And I think she gets it. She's so tough, even when she doesn't think she is, and we complement each other."
Kaley is a nurse, like Christian's mom, Lori Robinson, while Christian obviously followed in his dad's footsteps as a coach.
"She's extremely talented, worked at a cardiac ICU in Gainesville, so that's something that she's very passionate about," Christian said. "She's literally handled the move (to Waco) while I've been here coaching these guys, and I couldn't do it without her."
Robinson was selected to the AFCA 35 Under 35 Coaches Leadership Institute in December and participated in a one-day seminar during last month's AFCA convention in Charlotte, N.C. The program is aimed at identifying and developing future leaders in the football coaching profession.
"What you find out is that it's about building relationships," he said, "and that was the part that I loved the most about going to the convention. We compete against each other, but we're really living a lot of the same lives. Even though we want to win games, we'll care about that to some degree, but it's not going to be the most important thing 30 years from now.
"I told a bunch of these young freshmen that I've got, I hope I get the opportunity to coach their sons. Because if that starts happening, I know I did things the right way."
Baylor Bear Insider
A four-star linebacker at Greater Atlanta Christian School who missed his freshman season because of a back injury, Christian Robinson remembers getting into it with his high school coach after "one of the first games that I didn't perform well."
What made it tougher was that Ken Robinson, the defensive coordinator and his dad, was also his ride home.
"It was hard early on to understand because that's dad, and there would be a lot of rough Saturdays," said Robinson, who was named Baylor's inside linebackers coach at the end of the 2022 season. "We tried to watch all the film before the noon (college) kickoff games. I didn't know the difference for a long time. But I learned once I got into it that he loved me."
Now in his 11th year as a college coach, including the last five seasons as a full-time assistant at Florida (2018-21) and Auburn (2022), that's the same tough-love approach Robinson uses with his players.
"I tell them, 'I'm not your dad, but I'm going to love you,''' he said. "I had a hard conversation with one of them this morning about where to finish on the line, why it's important and what it produces. I had my dad in my ear doing that. And Coach (Mark) Richt was a father to many of my teammates at Georgia that didn't have one.
"Sometimes, these guys haven't been told that they've been loved. Look, we're going to have hard days and we're going to have to tell them hard truths. But we get to be that role, and I had a great example of that every day."
Born into a football family – his dad also played linebacker for the Washington Redskins – Christian said he has "always been a part of a locker room."
"I rode to school every day with him, so I'd have to wait until the locker room was cleared out and everybody went home," Christian said. "I tell the guys all the time, there's nothing better than having a spot in the locker room, because you belong, you are part of a team. And when I got done playing, that was probably something I knew immediately, that if I'm not a part of this, it's going to eat at me."
With scholarship offers from the likes of Alabama, Clemson and North Carolina, Robinson signed with Georgia out of high school. Part of back-to-back SEC East Division championship teams, he played 51 games with 17 starts from 2009-12, racking up 159 tackles, 22.5 tackles for loss and 4.5 sacks for the Bulldogs. But when he suffered a crack bone in his foot in the second game of his junior season, "I knew my football career was not going to be the same," he said.
"That was when I started dropping hints to some of the coaches like, 'Hey, I'd love to come back if this doesn't work out. This is where my passion is.' I went to the St. Louis Rams (as an undrafted free agent), got a cup of coffee and came back home at 22 years old and a week out of a mini-camp and started trying to learn how to be a grad assistant."
The first year as a defensive GA at his alma mater was "kind of scary," Christian said. Without a blueprint or manual to go by, "I didn't even know where to sit in a meeting. I knew to bring something to write with, I knew how to take notes. But finding out, when we go out there, we're going to continue to work and develop and mold those guys."
It helped having mentors like Mike Macdonald, the current Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator; and Kirk Olivadotti, now the Green Bay Packers' linebackers coach.
"I had a lot of great examples around me and people that I care about," Christian said. "(Olivadotti) had worked in the NFL for a long time . . . and getting to work beside him as a grad assistant, he treated me like an equal. And I loved that. There are so many different ways to do it. I want to do it where I'm going to drive you, I'm going to be hard on you. But it can be a relationship, it can be a classroom setting. And that's what I've enjoyed."
After two years at Georgia, Christian thought about getting out of football at that point and moving to Nashville with his then-girlfriend and now wife, Kaley.
"The day that I was supposed to sign a contract to go to work in social media marketing for this company, I get a call from Hugh Freeze (at Ole Miss)," he said. "I literally hadn't heard from anybody, and then the day I'm about to sign – I have it in hand – I get a call from Hugh Freeze. 'We have a GA spot, would you be interested in coming?' I just wanted to be somewhere that I could learn."
Kaley followed Christian to Oxford at the end of his second season at Ole Miss, and "two weeks later the defensive staff got let go," he said. "She got indoctrinated real quick to the fact that things can happen that are out of your control. It wasn't easy, but nothing's ever easy, no matter where you work."
After one year at Mississippi State, where he got the chance to coach the linebackers by himself, Christian was in limbo again when head coach Dan Mullen and defensive coordinator Todd Grantham made the move to Florida.
"My thought was, they're not bringing me, I'm getting left," he said. "I never thought in a million years I'd get to go to Florida. . . . When I got that call, I wasn't crying, but it was like everything that you had hoped for, this made it all worth it."
In his first season as a full-time assistant coach, Robinson helped the Gators win 10 games and beat seventh-ranked Michigan, 41-15, in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl. He also helped tutor Jonathan Greenard, a transfer from Louisville who led the SEC with 9.5 sacks and 15.5 tackles for loss before being drafted in the third round by the Houston Texans.
During his four years at Florida, the Gators had an overall record of 36-16, made four-consecutive bowl game appearances and were fourth nationally in sacks, trailing only Alabama, Clemson and Pittsburgh. When Grantham was fired after a 40-17 loss to South Carolina, Robinson took over as the DC for the last four games of the 2021 season.
"I didn't know if we were going to move or not," said Robinson, who moved to Auburn as linebackers coach and defensive run-game coordinator. "You learn different things everywhere you go. Auburn is a great place and a place that will always mean a lot to me."
Going through another mid-season transition, Robinson saw Auburn grad Cadillac Williams take over when head coach Bryan Harsin was fired after the first eight games of the 2022 season.
"We lost some games that I wish we would have had back, and it was difficult," Christian said. "But in that transition, it wasn't so much about the head coach as just seeing what a team can decide to do. Nobody thought we could beat anybody, and we beat a team that was pretty special on paper (Texas A&M, 13-10).
"Getting to see that, it changed something in me about coaching because you get to see what it's really about. People say it's talent, people say it's your scheme. But if you can get a group to be in alignment, give more effort longer, more detailed, that's what it is. And it's not about us, it's always about (the players)."
Job searching for the second time in as many years, Christian said he was looking for "a place that is going to live out what it says it's about, and is going to allow its leader to be that as well."
"I've moved three times in a year and a half," he said, "and I want to be somewhere where when I can talk about family and building something and being a part of something that I can say it and not . . . we've got a job to do and that will always be the case, but where the people in the building, in their heart, believe what they're saying."
That's when he thought back to his interactions on the recruiting trail when Dave Aranda was at LSU and "we just ended up bumping into each other."
"We went to the same school for the same practice," he said of the then-LSU defensive coordinator. "You meet a lot of people, and first impressions can mean a lot, but just his demeanor. In my mind, I thought, if I ever get a chance to work for him, that I would run and do it. Why he's had success and why people want to be around him is because he is one of the most genuine people I've ever met."
Hired on December 30, the week after Baylor's season ended with a loss to Air Force in the Armed Forces Bowl, Christian joins a young defensive staff that includes defensive coordinator Matt Powledge, cornerbacks coach Kevin Curtis, outside linebackers coach Caleb Collins and defensive line coach Dennis Johnson.
"I've always been the 'young guy,' so it throws me off that there's actually guys around my age," said Robinson, who will turn 33 in May.
"It's easy to feel detached when you don't know what (the players) are into. I do notice that I'm getting older, but I'm still able to keep up and understand what they're going through. They're still figuring it out. I'm still trying to figure it out, but I have a 10-year head start on a lot of them. We can connect because we're dealing with a lot of the same things, as adults."
Aranda said Robinson is "one of the top young coaches in the country, whose commitment to relationships and the success of the young men he coaches – on and off the field – is an ideal fit for our program."
Robinson inherits an inside linebackers room that includes returning starter Matt Jones and transfers Mike Smith from Liberty and Josh White from LSU, along with Brooks Miller, Carmello Jones and Jeremy Evans.
"There were some that I watched, just to get acquainted," Christian said. "But the beauty of when you go to a new place, I told every single one of them, 'You all get a fresh start. Whoever you want to be, you get to be.' I think that gives life to a ton of guys because I'm coaching our walk-ons as hard as Matt Jones. I was a guy that nobody thought was going to play, but was on two SEC East (championship) teams. You get to be whoever you want to be."
Christian and his wife, Kaley, met when they were both students at Georgia and got married July 3, 2021.
"She saw those first couple of years as a GA, and that's all she knew," Christian said. "And I think that's helped us connect, particularly with the younger coaches, because she remembers being at the very bottom. And I think she gets it. She's so tough, even when she doesn't think she is, and we complement each other."
Kaley is a nurse, like Christian's mom, Lori Robinson, while Christian obviously followed in his dad's footsteps as a coach.
"She's extremely talented, worked at a cardiac ICU in Gainesville, so that's something that she's very passionate about," Christian said. "She's literally handled the move (to Waco) while I've been here coaching these guys, and I couldn't do it without her."
Robinson was selected to the AFCA 35 Under 35 Coaches Leadership Institute in December and participated in a one-day seminar during last month's AFCA convention in Charlotte, N.C. The program is aimed at identifying and developing future leaders in the football coaching profession.
"What you find out is that it's about building relationships," he said, "and that was the part that I loved the most about going to the convention. We compete against each other, but we're really living a lot of the same lives. Even though we want to win games, we'll care about that to some degree, but it's not going to be the most important thing 30 years from now.
"I told a bunch of these young freshmen that I've got, I hope I get the opportunity to coach their sons. Because if that starts happening, I know I did things the right way."
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