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Running back Isaiah Robinson comes in to his third season as a Demon Deacon with some experience under his belt and has seen meaningful playing time for Coach Clawson and staff in each of his first two years in Winston-Salem.
The 5-10, 215 LB running back out of Independence HS in Charlotte ran for 120 yards on 39 carries (3.0 YPC) in his sophomore season. He also caught 6 balls for 57 yards and a receiving touchdown.
A lot of Robinson's role is obviously still up in the air since we haven't broken for fall camp yet . Coming into the season as a junior, Robinson will be looked to as an experienced player in the back field and will need to be one of the leaders on offense behind the scenes at the least. He will hopefully have some opportunities in the short yard and goal line situations to establish himself as a threat for the Demon Deacon offense.
While Robinson isn't slow by any means, his value on the team will likely be to punch the ball in when we get in the red zone and be a bit of power back. If he has worked on his blocking and lateral foot speed, he will also provide a lot of asset in the Power formations that Coach Clawson likes to run.
The running back area lacks experience in general and incoming freshmen Cade Carney and Arkeem Byrd will look to push the older guys to improve the group as a whole. There will be a lot of competition for playing time at RB and the corps looks to be the best set of backs Clawson has had in Winston-Salem up to this point.
With this expected amount of competition, as discussed previously in recent running back profiles, it is difficult to forecast who exactly will enter the season with the starting job. There will almost certainly be a lot of rotating backs depending on down and distance and there will be plenty of carries to go around.
At this juncture, without seeing how the incoming freshmen look against college-level talent, I would project Robinson as one of the favorites to be a consistent third down back as well as push Tyler Bell for carries very early in the season. The coaching staff will be looking for guys to emerge from the competition and put a stranglehold on the starting spot, but the variables (specifically the aforementioned down and distance, short v. long yardage situations) will likely serve to see carries from a lot of different backs.
You can follow Isaiah on Twitter at ZayRobinson_42