Landon Robinson had to make a major change ahead of his sophomore season at Navy in 2023.
Before spring ball, defensive line coach Jerrick Hall told Robinson — Navy’s seventh-string defensive end at the time — he’d be moving to nose guard. There was one major problem with this plan: Robinson was extremely undersized for an interior defensive lineman, weighing just 240 pounds.
Robinson, who is expected to start for the Midshipmen this season, entered Navy’s 2023 spring camp as the fourth-string nose guard. But two players ahead of him on the depth chart left the team, and starting nose guard Donald “Biscuit” Berniard Jr. suffered a shoulder injury.
Robinson, who didn’t play at all as a freshman in 2022, was temporarily thrust in with the starters.
“I realized I needed to take it seriously,” Robinson said. “There was a real opportunity for me to play.”
Robinson dedicated the next three months to looking the part of a Navy nose guard. He ate upward of 4,000 calories a day — often waking up in the middle of the night to sneak in an extra meal — and practically lived in the weight room.
Robinson weighed 287 pounds by the time the Midshipmen began preseason camp late last July, Hall said. And he did so while maintaining the athleticism that earned him a spot on The Athletic’s “Freaks List” in 2023 and 2024.
Robinson played in all 12 games last year as a rotational piece, tallying 28 tackles and four sacks. With Berniard having graduated, Robinson is expected to take over the starting nose guard job in 2024.
“Everything they told him to do in order to gain weight to be a Navy nose guard, he did,” Hall said. “And while doing that, he still ran 20 mph on the GPS.”
Make no mistake about it, it’s hard to find a human being as athletically gifted as Robinson.
His official Navy player profile labels him the “strongest player on the team,” a claim backed up by his 650-pound max squat and 450-pound max bench press. He was one of only 13 FBS defensive linemen in 2023 to be a regular member of his school’s kickoff team. And, like Hall said, he consistently hits 20 mph when sprinting.
He got to show off that speed last season against SMU, when he was tapped to run a fake punt early in the third quarter. He fielded a direct snap from the upback position and took the ball 24 yards down the left sideline.
“He had the ball high and tight, rumbling and bumbling down the field,” Hall said. “It’s very rare to have an athlete like that.”
This standout athleticism is nothing new for Robinson, whose road to Annapolis was anything but straightforward.
The Fairlawn, Ohio, native played four sports — football, baseball, wrestling and track and field — in high school. His best sport was football. He played linebacker and offensive line for Copley High School. He was team captain his junior and senior years.
Entering his senior year, Robinson had about 20 college offers. Navy was not one of them. He initially committed to Lehigh, an FCS school in Pennsylvania. But late in the process, the Midshipmen threw their hat in the ring.
The opportunity to play FBS football and earn a prestigious Naval Academy degree was too appealing to pass up.
“[Then-linebackers coach P.J. Volker] reached out to me,” Robinson said. “He was interested in me as a player. I was willing to listen to what he had to say. He put together a great presentation on the benefits of coming to Navy, and it just took my family and I by storm.”
Fast forward to 2024, and Robinson is set to become the anchor of Navy’s defensive line. He knows the gravity of that role and looked the part this offseason. He earned the team’s Admiral Mack Award, given to the Midshipmen’s most improved player in spring camp.
Berniard leaves massive shoes for Robinson to fill at the starting nose guard position. Berniard started 42 consecutive games across four seasons for Navy, providing stability and football IQ for the defensive unit.
“He’s not a very big guy … but he just knew a lot about the game, knew a lot about the schemes,” Robinson said of Berniard. “I want to improve how I see the offense before they even come at us. He knew a lot about that.”
Robinson was often deployed in Navy’s dime package last season and was primarily expected to rush the passer. This offseason, he’s focused on becoming more of an every-down player.
That means boosting his understanding of offensive schemes to play better against the run as well as improving his conditioning to stay on the field more than he’s used to. That’s an extra daunting task in Navy’s complex defensive scheme, one that asks its defensive linemen to play multiple spots along the line and shift often.
But it’s a challenge Robinson is ready for.
“We don’t have a better young man in our program, a guy that works harder than he does,” head coach Brian Newberry said. “At that position, he’s exactly what we’re looking for. He’s super athletic, strong, can hold ground in the middle … but he’s got the ability, with his athletic ability, to make some plays sideline to sideline for a nose you don’t commonly see.”
Robinson prides himself on his versatility. Nose guards are expected to line up across from interior offensive linemen. Last year, he played more than a third of his snaps outside of that spot, according to Pro Football Focus.
That versatility will be on display again in 2024, Hall said. Robinson won’t be back on the kickoff team this season. But that’s because his athleticism will be needed to spearhead Navy’s run defense, something the program has prided itself on for years.
“I expect him to make a lot of plays,” Newberry said. “You don’t expect a ton of production from your nose, but I think you’re going to see that with Landon. If he can be really productive, that’s going to be good for our D-line.”
Photo Credit: Kenya Allen/PressBox
Issue 288: August/September 2024
Originally published Aug. 14, 2024