Back from injury, IU senior Jacob Robinson eager to make final Bucket game count

Jordan Guskey | IndyStar

Show Caption Hide Caption IU's Jacob Robinson talks his desire to be active for Purdue game Robinson could have redshirted but wanted to come back from his injury this season.

Purdue at IU, noon Saturday, ESPN2

BLOOMINGTON — Jacob Robinson didn’t want to redshirt.

When the senior defensive lineman suffered the leg injury that would force him to miss the first six Big Ten games Indiana played in 2018, which defensive line coach Mark Hagen described to IndyStar on Tuesday as a “pretty severe knee injury,” he had already decided this would be his last season with the Hoosiers.

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Robinson had only played in three games. He could have chosen to use the new college football redshirt rule, not played again and come back healthy next year. It's a conversation Hagen said Robinson had with IU coach Tom Allen. But Robinson had made up his mind and there was a chance, with rehab, he could return to help IU (5-6, 2-6 in Big Ten) reach a third bowl game in four years. Not to mention take the Old Oaken Bucket back from Purdue.

So Robinson seized on that, and while he’s not been 100 percent since he returned for IU’s win against Maryland, he’s doing what he can to deliver on his goals.

“I wanted to continue to play and help this team now as much as I could because I love these guys and I’ve loved my time here,” Robinson said. “To be able to do that this year would be extra special.”

Robinson tried to be as much of a leader as he could while his injury kept him sidelined. The Westfield native watched, learned and made sure players who weren’t playing significant snaps stayed engaged in the game. He was a leading force behind the players-led meeting after IU’s blowout loss to Iowa.

But while that meant a lot to teammates such as redshirt junior defensive lineman Gavin Everett, Robinson's presence just means more when he can lace up his cleats, stand in the huddle and line up with them along the line of scrimmage.

Hagen and Everett both said they feared Robinson’s season was over when the injury occurred, and here was Robinson playing again. To Everett, Robinson’s perseverance made “everybody else’s nicks and dings on their body just kind of feel a little bit less.”

“You look back prior to last year and he’d been a part of a group of teams that had won or kept the Bucket here in Bloomington,” Hagen said. “So, when you lose that Bucket, it stings. It’s hard to put into words what it means or how it feels until you’re in that situation. It burns. It stings. It’s gut-wrenching. That doesn’t surprise me at all that he wanted to be a part of a team that could go out and fight to get it back.”

“You need guys like that to be able to allow you to prepare at the right level to play in this kind of a game,” Allen said Monday.

IU Coach Tom Allen talks Michigan loss, Purdue game Saturday The Hoosiers need to beat the Boilermakers to advance to postseason play.

Robinson remembers what it was like to sit at home during winter break last year, not playing in a bowl, for the first time. The horrible feeling that's allowed him to be open to calling Saturday’s matchup a revenge game. It's one that drives his teammates, too.

And when Robinson hopes to drown that feeling with joy against the Boilermakers, he’ll do so with the support of a dad and brother in the stands who went to Purdue.

They converted to being Hoosiers when Robinson began his career at IU (his mom also attended Indiana), he said, so he won’t have to worry about family members wearing Purdue garb and cheering for this to be IU’s last game of the season. But his brother, who Robinson said hasn’t been shy after key Purdue wins this season, could start to let that slip when Robinson starts his job in medical device sales with a company called Boston Scientific.

That’s Robinson’s next step.

Until then, he's focused on being as ready as he can to help reclaim the Old Oaken Bucket.

“He's invested a lot in this program, and he’s one of our leaders, you know, and one of the guys that I rely on to talk to and get a pulse of our team,” Allen said. “His care factor is really, really high. He’s an awesome young man.”

Follow IndyStar sports reporter Jordan Guskey on Twitter at @JordanGuskey or email him at jguskey@gannett.com.