Notre Dame WR Commit Brayden Robinson Proved He Belonged From Start

Melvin Robinson acknowledges he’s a little biased when it comes to Brayden Robinson‍. 

Not only is he Brayden’s coach, he’s also his dad.

Still, Coach Robinson has been around enough to know what he sees.

“Personally, he's a great young man,” Coach Robinson says. “He's a coach's son. I think he wants the challenges of everything. He's of those people who if you say he can't do it, he's going to do it anyway. He's going to do it. He's very coachable. He's very knowledgeable of the game. He's a hard-worker, determined.”

After a thorough recruiting process, Brayden Robinson committed to Notre Dame in July, but the process of learning the game of football started long before that. 

“When he started playing football, I said, 'Man, this guy got some wheels on him. He can go a little bit,’” his father says of watching Brayden as a youngster.

“He got to get better and better each year.”

Still, even Coach Robinson wasn’t sure his son was ready for the varsity team at Red Oak High School as a freshman. At the time, Coach Robinson was an assistant with the program.

“I was a passing coordinator, so I was calling all the passing plays,” Coach Robinson explains. “The head coach said, 'Coach Rob, I need Brayden on varsity.' I said, 'Huh?'”

Coach Robinson was wondering if his son, who was barely over 150 pounds, was prepared for the physical nature of varsity football in Texas. 

“He was lightweight,” Coach laughs. 

But Brayden wasted little time showing his father he was indeed ready.

“He took a hard lick, he took that lick and got up.” Coach Robinson remembers. “For me, that was a turning point. I said, 'If he can take that lick right there and get up, I think he can play.' 

“And that's when he started coming on varsity because we needed some speed.”

Now around 5-8 and 165 pounds, Brayden has turned people overlooking him into a motivating factor.

“I just feel he's one of those guys that you say he can't do it and he wants to do it,” his father says. “He going to show you he can do it. He's very determined, motivated. That's the kind of thing that I like about him because he works hard to prove everybody wrong.”

He’s tried to pattern his game after a couple undersized NFL receivers in Tyreek Hill and Zay Flowers.

“Those are his favorite two athletes,” Coach Robinson says. “We try to do a combination of those guys with our stuff we're doing. We try to put him in the same positions. He loves Tyreek Hill and he loves Flowers. If he could fit in that mold, I think he'd fit in perfectly.”

Brayden will be a major part of Red Oak’s offense this season and after that Coach will become just Dad. 

“I'm going to miss him a whole lot. He's my last one, so I'm going to miss my whole bunch. I'm going to be there for every game.”

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