What the Heck Happened With Travaris Robinson, Alabama, and Georgia?
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00:00 do a lot of the the Travaris Robinson storylines in the local hour.
00:04 But we got a bunch of people here, so we're going to go ahead and attack it.
00:07 So let's talk about this today.
00:09 All right. Here's the timeline, right?
00:10 Saturday, Travaris Robinson announces that he is going to take the defensive
00:15 back and code job at the University of Georgia.
00:18 Will Muschamp going to step down in an off field analyst role?
00:21 OK, Travaris Robinson going to be that DB coach slash codc.
00:26 Now, what that spurred was Cailin DeBoer to get on the phone
00:31 and basically offer Travaris an opportunity to come interview
00:35 for the defensive coordinator's job at Alabama.
00:38 I'm under the impression that Travaris during this time
00:41 never actually had a chance to move out of Tuscaloosa.
00:43 I'm sure he was still there during all of this process.
00:46 So here's how this happened.
00:48 He goes to that interview process and something went astray.
00:52 All right. Something went wrong and they didn't end up coming to agreements.
00:56 Here's what I am hypothesizing went wrong. All right.
00:59 I think Alabama told Travaris Robinson,
01:03 we will give you the role of defensive coordinator
01:06 and then we will basically dictate what kind of defense you're going to play.
01:09 All right. Because I don't know if you all know this,
01:12 but Cailin DeBoer has had the same defense coordinator
01:14 travel with him for the last 16 years.
01:16 So he told me something like that.
01:17 So like a decade and a half of this dude traveling and going
01:20 everywhere, DeBoer is gone and then being in unison.
01:23 Same thing, by the way, with Grubb, not that extent.
01:26 But the offensive coordinator has been with DeBoer for a very,
01:28 very long time as well.
01:29 So you might ask yourself, why?
01:33 A. Would Travaris Robinson agree to such a title?
01:36 And B. Why would Alabama be so adamant about keeping Travaris Robinson
01:42 and just throwing a title at him and giving him additional money
01:46 if that were indeed the case?
01:48 Which I, by the way, 100% adhere to this belief, because here's the deal.
01:52 Read the tea leaves on Travaris Robinson's last four years.
01:55 What's this guy been doing?
01:57 Travaris Robinson has been going from Power Five school,
02:00 national title contender to national title contender,
02:03 trying to get promoted back to a defensive coordinator's role in the SEC
02:08 where he last held under Will Muschamp at South Carolina.
02:12 OK, so this guy is very obviously in search of a promotion
02:16 and in search of getting back to the pinnacle of his job title,
02:20 which is defensive coordinator.
02:21 I don't know whether or not he's got aspirations
02:23 to be a head coach anytime soon or anytime in the rest of his career.
02:26 But I do know sure as shit he's been trying to get back
02:29 to a defensive coordinator's role.
02:31 So he is going to take that phone call, which, per my sourcing,
02:35 is exactly what Kirby Smart and Will Muschamp, who, by the way,
02:38 Will Muschamp, Travaris Robinson's like best coaching friend.
02:41 They're like dudes.
02:43 They are like associates. They are homies. OK.
02:45 So when the phone call gets on Travaris Robinson's phone that says,
02:49 hey, they want to interview me now for the defensive coordinator job.
02:52 He picked up the phone to his now new employer and said, hey,
02:55 what do you guys think I should do?
02:57 And Kirby and Muschamp said, well, duh, you got to go take the interview.
03:00 Like, we're not going to tell you to turn that down.
03:02 Like, that's what you swear.
03:04 Your whole aspirations are. That's what you want to do.
03:06 We know this. You know this.
03:07 So go take the interview.
03:09 Now, why wouldn't he take that job if that were actually the job being offered?
03:13 Well, maybe because that was not the job that was actually being offered,
03:16 which is what I just laid out in front of you, right?
03:19 I don't think that it was anything other than a title and a bump in pay.
03:23 So why would they offer him a title and a bump in pay
03:26 and still know all the while that they're probably going to run
03:29 their own type of system dependent or interdependent upon the hiring
03:33 of or the maintaining of Travaris Robinson?
03:35 Well, well, you keep T-Rob, you might be able to keep
03:38 some of these really great players that he's brought to Alabama, right?
03:41 That was probably the game plan from Alabama.
03:44 So I know a lot of Georgia fans in the mentions,
03:48 and I know a lot of Georgia fans in the comments, a lot of Georgia fans
03:50 on social media probably did the look at Kirby Duncan on Kayla DeBoer.
03:56 Dude, only been here five days and we got a code DC instead of their DC, right?
04:02 Y'all want to do the whole thing?
04:03 I don't think they're 100% mutually connected.
04:05 I personally think this was a title thing in hopes of maintaining
04:10 a little guy by the name of not a little guy, a guy by the name of Caleb Downs.
04:13 So it sounds like to me that this was more so
04:17 maybe not a Kirby smart play, but a will must champ type thing,
04:20 because I mean, they go back to 06 at Auburn and when
04:22 Tavares was a grad assistant and must was a DC there.
04:27 So is that true?
04:27 Like it was more so like because we'll must champs at Georgia.
04:30 It's probably why Robinson is that Georgia?
04:32 Yeah, I mean, I don't think I don't think we'll must.
04:34 I think we'll must want to step away for a little bit into an off the road
04:38 because he's probably will burn out.
04:39 And by the way, he's been I looked it up yesterday.
04:42 Will must champ has been a defensive coordinator or a head coach
04:45 in the SEC since 2004.
04:47 Wow.
04:49 What a run.
04:51 So money probably ain't a problem for will must champ.
04:54 And there's probably a burnout factor there, I would imagine.
04:57 And so I don't what I that is true.
05:00 That can be true while also saying, I don't think he takes this step down
05:04 for anybody other than T-Rod.
05:07 I think they made this.
05:08 I think we'll must champ was like, yeah, we need to do this.
05:10 Yeah. You know what I mean?
05:11 For the betterment of the University of Georgia and for my lifespan.
05:14 Yeah. And I think the reason Alabama so so desperately went not
05:19 I want to say desperately, but went after Robinson was because not only is
05:24 it very important in maintaining the rush that you had from 2023,
05:27 but also moving forward, killing the board, his staff
05:30 probably going to have a lot of ties to the south.
05:32 No. And Traverse Robinson is an excellent recruiter in the south.
05:35 So I think that's probably another key factor as to why they were like
05:38 we have to do everything we can to retain this guy.
05:40 Look, I'm not I'm not saying it's a negative.
05:42 I'm not saying this is something to point to and go, oh, hey, that's a bad sign
05:46 for the DeBoer regime at Alabama.
05:48 But the whole analysis of this guy coming to the southeast
05:51 was that he was going to have to kind of not morph,
05:54 but he's going to have to learn the ways down here. Right.
05:57 And part of that is being willing to bend, right.
05:59 Being able to meet people in the middle, being able to willing to come to a
06:03 conclusion and not always be you 100 percent winning those conclusions.
06:07 This a prime example of this, in my opinion, right?
06:10 Like if Traverse Robinson wanted to call plays and it drastically
06:14 or at least slightly impacted your chances of keeping Caleb Downs.
06:18 Let him call plays right.
06:20 Like if that's going to be and I'm not saying that's it. Right.
06:23 But I do think if Traverse Robinson is the defense coordinator in Alabama,
06:27 we don't hear so much staggum smoke about Caleb Downs contemplating or wavering
06:32 or whatever with regards to the portal.
06:34 We're going to get into the down stuff here in just a second.
06:36 But guys, if if the it's not even just Caleb, it's Des Ricks.
06:42 It's it's the other corners that he signed.
06:44 It's the guys in the twenty twenty five class.
06:46 It's the signees in the twenty twenty four classes.
06:49 It's the retention of all of these athletes.
06:51 And all you have to do is just be willing to let a very qualified
06:57 defensive coordinator be your defensive coordinator.
06:59 And again, I'm not saying it's a miss.
07:01 I'm just saying it's the first sign of an unwillingness to bend,
07:05 in my opinion.
07:06 What if but what if like the recruiting doesn't matter all that much?
07:09 What and here's here's why I say that, because I think if
07:13 if there's one thing that you could take away from twenty twenty four
07:17 is that we had two teams that do not did not recruit in the top
07:20 ten, top fifteen, even for the most part, compete for a national title.
07:24 So if what if DeBoer can just go to Alabama and maybe he's not consistently
07:28 great like they were under Nick Saban, maybe they're not competing
07:31 for national titles on a year to year basis.
07:34 But maybe every three years, every four years, you do compile that roster
07:38 through a combination of the transfer portal and the guys that you've developed
07:40 for the last three years and you do compete for national title.
07:43 Maybe that does become maybe the new standard under DeBoer.
07:45 So maybe it doesn't have to continue this top five recruiting
07:48 that Alabama has done for the last 20 years.
07:50 You know, we talked about that the other night, where if you're going to try
07:53 to maintain, you're going to fail no matter what, if you're if your idea
07:56 of succession plans is to maintain the recruiting success that Nick Saban had.
08:01 Well, by God, you better hire Kirby Smarter, Dan Lanning.
08:04 And that wasn't an option.
08:05 We found that out.
08:05 So if you're going to maintain the performance and the output of the roster,
08:10 you better find someone who does more with less.
08:12 And I think he definitely proved at Washington and his previous stops
08:15 as that's exactly what he is able to do.
08:18 Now, obviously, the rest of the conversation, I know a lot of Georgia fans
08:23 in the in the comments are asking right now is like, what's up with downs now?
08:26 Because it was reported today that he is wavering whether or not
08:30 he's going to enter the portal or whether or not he's going to leave
08:32 or, you know, stay at Alabama.
08:34 And look, I don't want to do this.
08:38 If he enters the portal, we all know he's gone, right?
08:42 So if if it comes to a portal entry,
08:46 just assume that he's not staying in Alabama.
08:48 And you should also assume that I would imagine his landing spot
08:51 has already been picked out.
08:52 OK, so that's first and foremost that you should know about that.
08:56 I think the other thing that's very, very important,
08:58 and I don't think you can do any type of conjecture about where he's leaning,
09:01 what he might do, does Georgia have a chance, is Ohio State at play?
09:04 I think all of that needs to wait until Alabama actually makes a decision
09:09 at defensive coordinator.
09:11 OK, because that's going to be the biggest, you know, kind of deciding factor.
09:16 I would imagine four downs with regards to, you know, what he's going to do
09:21 if he if they play a system that he is both foreign to and dislikes.
09:25 He's going to the portal.
09:28 I'm telling you that I would imagine that right now.
09:30 Hypocritical, hypothetical situation.
09:32 What if we get to the end of the 30 days with a trip?
09:34 Because you probably like 25 now and Bama still hasn't picked a guy.
09:37 So I'm under the impression and you guys go to Georgia.
09:40 When's your ad drop in this week?
09:42 It may add drop ends tomorrow.
09:44 I think that's your deadline.
09:46 Unless he wants to get into the second window,
09:50 the window is not the 30 days, the 30 days is bullshit.
09:53 The window is whether or not he can enroll for classes this spring.
09:57 OK, so that window and I'm pretty sure it's not tomorrow.
10:01 I think it's Thursday.
10:02 I was told 48 hours. OK.
10:04 I probed the question, knowing the answer.
10:06 Great students over here.
10:07 It's about 48. I'm locked in. I'm not worried.
10:09 It's about 48 hours left on this timetable here as to whether or not
10:13 this is actually even plausible until March. OK.
10:17 Again, the 30 day you congrats.
10:19 You can get into the portal.
10:20 That's just communications that whether or not you enter the portal
10:23 does not mean shit other than whether or not you're going to get in charge.
10:26 The person recruiting you illegally is going to actually get in trouble
10:29 by the NCAA for tampering, which is never going to happen.
10:32 So you end quote unquote entering the portal.
10:34 That's a Hayes Fawcett tweet. That's it.
10:36 That has nothing to do with the process of whether or not
10:38 you're leaving the school that you're at.
10:40 It does technically, but not literally.
10:43 Literally, all of these discussions are being had right now.
10:47 You don't think these discussions are being had actively,
10:49 then y'all haven't been paying attention to college football
10:51 the last what year and a half, two years, where these things don't happen
10:55 the day they get in the portal.
10:56 These things happen the weeks before they get into the portal at every level.
11:00 So, you know, I do think the decision, the defensive coordinator spot
11:05 is very, very important.
11:07 I obviously know that the Travaris Robinson higher at the University of Georgia.
11:13 I don't know if it it opened it 100 percent open the door for this
11:18 for this to potentially happen if he ends up entering the portal.
11:22 So how does this whole code DC thing work?
11:25 Like because because if he did want to call plays at Alabama.
11:28 So what is a role like that entail at Georgia if you are Cody?
11:33 See, because I mean, Schumann has been around for the longest.
11:36 So you would assume that he's the guy that's calling the plays,
11:38 calling the shots and everything.
11:39 So how does that work between these two guys of like, I don't know.
11:43 You ever heard that term passing game coordinator? Yeah. Yep.
11:46 I firmly believe that the now passing game coordinators everywhere.
11:52 They handle passing game installs.
11:54 They they do the plays that they want to run.
11:56 They break down the packages, what the defense does,
11:59 and they present it to the offense.
12:01 They present it to their coordinator.
12:02 But the coordinator is calling the place.
12:04 You know what I mean?
12:04 The guy on Saturday with the headset on, he is the coordinator.
12:07 The passing game coordinator is just basically entitled.
12:10 I think these things were created to give guys raises, to be honest with you.