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BOCA RATON – Chris Robison started at quarterback in all five games he’s been eligible during his college career. He’s punted twice. He’s open to kicking field goals if asked.
And if the cheerleaders need some help with their stunts on the sideline, well, the redshirt freshman has experience there, too.
“In high school I was actually a cheerleader, too,” said Robison, who originally enrolled at Oklahoma out of Horn High School in Mesquite, Tex., before transferring to FAU. “Not like a real cheerleader, but I threw the girls up and caught them at a competition that was a big competition – NCA. They asked me to do it since I was friends with the cheerleaders.”
Nowadays Robison’s concentrating on throwing footballs rather than cheerleaders. He’s doing so with mixed success.
Robison set a program record by throwing for 471 yards against Air Force in the season’s second game, and drove the offense well at times against UCF and MTSU – the Owls two most recent games.
But FAU lost both those games in part because the Owls started slowly against the Knights and almost completely stalled in the second half last week at MTSU.
After that performance coach Lane Kiffin noted that Robison hasn’t progressed as quickly as expected, and left open the possibility for considering a change at quarterback this week. Robison said he did get word of Kiffin’s discontent.
“It’s so funny because my dad, he stays up on a lot that stuff and he actually said it to me,” Robison said. “It’s not that it makes me worry about, man you’ve got to play hard you have to do this and that. I just have to continue on the path that I am. I have to work hard because I haven’t played to my best ability. Even though the Air Force game I broke the record, that doesn’t even matter because I still didn’t play how I wanted to. So I’ve just got to continue to play better.”
Robison has completed 64.4 percent of his passes, throwing five touchdowns against six interceptions. He is still working with the first team at quarterback this week in preparation for Saturday’s game against Old Dominion.
There wasn’t any indication either way on Wednesday as to whether he’ll reprise his role as punter. With FAU struggling mightily in the punt game, twice against UCF Kiffin left the starting offense on the field in fourth down situations, then had Robison punt out of a normal offensive sent.
He averaged 52 yards on those kicks, but Robison wasn’t called upon to punt in Saturday’s loss to MTSU. Punter Sebastian Riella punted six times, averaging 33.3 yards per punt, with a long of 42 yards.
With FAU also struggling in the place kicking game, primarily because kicker Vladimir Rivas is battling an undisclosed injury, Robison would embrace the opportunity to attempt a field goal or two.
“If they let me, I will,” Robison said. “I actually have before. I used to be a kicker in high school.”
Robison estimated longest field goal to have been approximately 35 yards.
But he was deadly accurate, right?
“Ahhh, maybe not deadly,” he said, laughing. “It gets in the uprights.”
A look a little further back in history reveals that Robison was one of the best youngsters nationally at combining passing and kicking duties, as evidenced by his performance in the NFL’s Punt, Pass and Kick competition.
“I actually won it for Texas when I was, What grade was I in? Maybe fifth grade,” Robison said. “Won it in Texas, went to Dallas Cowboys Stadium and I got like eighth in the nation for Punt, Pass and Kick.”
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