Media Day: Greg Robinson on the Field Level Advantage

After the Rodriguez press conference the media had the chance to chat with the assistant coaches.  I bounced around a little bit (Fred Jackson was great, maybe more on this later) and listened to defensive coordinator Greg (Gerg?*) Robinson. 

As you might expect given where the guy has been (he rattled off all the BCS conferences he’s worked in at one point and I think it’s ALL of them), he had complete command of the Q&A session.  He could go straight to the booth if he ever gets out of the coaching game.  FWIW.

Anyway, one reporter asked him about the recent announcement that he’ll be coaching from the sidelines this fall.  Scott Shafer and many other coordinators do this from the booth of course.  I thought his answer was pretty interesting:

Greg Robinson: Being on the field…especially now that offenses have gone to the no-huddle offense, you get two to three seconds longer to think and that’s an eternity in football.  You can make a quicker decision because you don’t have to transfer a call from upstairs to downstairs.  That’s an advantage.

You are on the field, so when issues occur you can get to them quickly.  I’ve had a lot of experience coaching, and if I’m always upstairs always have to deliver the message [through another coach] sometimes things can be lost.

* I see the GERG jokes everywhere and I must have been away on vacation when this joke came down.  Other than time (it’s a little embarrassing to admit I’m on the outside looking in on this one), it’s also a little odd that my name is Greg, so you’d think I’d be on top of this.  I’m not.  Someone please explain!

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