Barry Sanders 2.0? Longhorns Bijan Robinson Models Game After Legend
When Texas Longhorns star Bijan Robinson and NFL comparisons are concerned, most analysts and scouts point towards the same name - New York Giants star, Saquon Barkley.
Which, to be fair, is easy to see, with both players possessing top-end speed, shiftiness, ball skills, power, and every other desirable trait a franchise could ask of a running back in 2023.
And while Robinson believes Barkley to be one of the top three backs in the NFL, alongside Christian McCaffrey and Breece Hall, there is another player who he aspires to be at the next level.
That player is none other than all-time great and NFL Hall of Famer, Barry Sanders.
“I watch (Barry Sanders) probably every other day,” Robinson said of Sanders. “I’m always trying to mimic his moves. He was so good at doing the things you couldn’t do. He was just the guy where every single time he touched the ball, you were just standing up trying to see what he would do. There would be some games on YouTube, some full games back in those times, and I would watch them all, just to see every single run that he did. I mean, he was just the most exciting player I’ve seen on a highlight tape.”
While to some that may sound like a lofty aspiration, Robinson is one of just a few players in recent memory who possesses the physical gifts to rival Sanders on the field.
Just one look at a Robinson highlight tape, and you'll see exactly what we mean.
“For me, I think it’s a gift from God,” Robinson said. “But you obviously have to work on it every single day. For me, I’m a knee-bender when I run the ball. Another guy that was a knee-bender was Barry Sanders. To try to redirect and be as low to the ground as you can, and understand you’ve got to feel defenders and read their shoulders and read angles to break as many tackles as you can to try to get north and south. For me, I take pride in that.”
Last season alone, Robinson rushed 258 times for 1,580 yards and 18 touchdowns, while catching 19 passes for 314 yards and two more scores in 12 games.
In 2021, despite missing the final two games of the season with a dislocated elbow, Robinson was almost as good, carrying the ball 195 times for 1,127 yards and 11 touchdowns, with 26 catches for 295 yards and four touchdowns through the air.
In his career, Robinson averaged 6.3 yards per rush, finishing fourth on the Longhorns' all-time rushing list with 3,410 yards, despite playing in nine fewer games than Earl Campbell (4,443 yards) and 18 fewer games than Cedric Benson (5,540 yards) and Ricky Williams (6,279 Yards).
In other words, he has already cemented himself as a Longhorns' all-time great.
And once he gets to the NFL, he will try to do the same and reach the heights of guys like Sanders, Walter Payton, Emmit Smith, and others.
You can follow Matt Galatzan on Twitter @MattGalatzan
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