Question finally fades as Denard Robinson assumes control of Michigan football team

Michigan sophomore quarterback Denard Robinson smiles as he scores in the first half against Connecticut last week. The next test for Robinson: Notre Dame at 3:30 p.m. Saturday.

Melanie Maxwell | AnnArbor.com

A dozen or so reporters form a half-moon around Denard Robinson.

It’s early August, and the sophomore stands at the forefront of the Michigan football team’s three-way quarterback race.

He’s peppered with questions ranging from the expected - evaluating his competitors - to the obscure - the date of his last haircut. Fifteen queries into the interview session, it finally surfaces.

The question that has followed him since the time he first put on his cleats at Deerfield Beach (Fla.) High School, and seemingly boarded a plane along with Robinson and followed him to Ann Arbor.

It’s both harmless and annoying. Robinson usually answers it with a shrug and polite sentence, but without fail, it’s asked in some variation every time he gathers with reporters.

On this day, it takes the form of this: “Denard, have coaches asked you about playing another position, and, if so, would you be willing to do that?”

Weeks later, Robinson emerged with Michigan’s starting quarterback job. In his first college start, he accumulated 383 total yards against a befuddled UConn defense, set the team’s single-game rushing record and won national player of the week honors.

Amid the postgame press conference and celebration that followed, the unwanted tagalong was nowhere to be found.

“The kid is a quarterback, my God,” said Art Taylor, Robinson’s high school coach at Deerfield Beach. “I hope he doesn’t hear those questions again.”

Single-minded focus

Reporters weren’t the only ones asking Robinson preference for playing quarterback.

At 6-foot, 190 pounds, he’s got the size to play cornerback or running back or wide receiver. With 4.3 speed in the 40-yard dash, he possessed the natural speed to succeed at any of them.

College scouts projected him to play those positions.

Although he succeeded at Deerfield Beach rolling out of the pocket and leading the offense at quarterback, throwing for 1,872 yards and 18 touchdowns as a senior, the majority of schools recruiting Robinson wanted him to play elsewhere.

Rivals.com, the nationwide recruiting website, ranked him as the eighth-best athlete in his class and the 16th-best cornerback available in 2008.

At the outset of the recruiting process, Taylor asked scouts and recruiters to be up front about what position they wanted Robinson to play.

“Denard was saying, ‘I want to play quarterback. I want to play quarterback. I want to play quarterback,’” Taylor said. “Don’t get him on campus somewhere and then try to change him.”

Rich Rodriguez listened.

Asked Saturday when Robinson asserted himself, in the context of the recent Michigan quarterback race, Rodriguez laughed. “When we recruited him,” he said.

Fine-tuning his passing skills

Last Saturday, Taylor sat in a recliner in his living room, hooting and hollering every time his protÃ©gÃ© burst through the line of scrimmage and haunted the Huskies defense.

By the time he finished, Robinson had completed 19 of 22 passes for 186 yards and a touchdown and run for 197 yards on a whopping 29 carries.

“If he can carry it 29 times for 200 yards, he’ll carry it 29 times again,” Rodriguez laughed. “I don’t know if he’ll be able to do that each and every game. … That’s a little more than we had planned.”

Funny thing is, Robinson intended to run the ball less than ever.

“I was just always thinking run,” he said of his mixed-bag 2009 season. “I just rushed myself a lot. I rushed everything a lot. When you rush, you’re not thinking like you’re supposed to. That really hurt me last year, really hurt.”

He spent the off-season learning the intricacies of the Michigan offense and devouring footage of opposing defenses.

By the time the spring game arrived, his knowledge base had evened with classmate Tate Forcier, who arrived on campus as an early enrollee six months earlier than Robinson.

Robinson impressed his coaches throughout the summer with his nuanced knowledge of the offense. When he was finally uncaged against UConn, he looked the like the conductor of an orchestra.

Only his coaches noticed the subtleties that needed fine-tuning.

But everybody in the record-breaking crowd of 113,090 noticed the wide smile across No. 16’s face. His teammates noticed it in the huddle too, and at one point, he talked so fast, they had to ask him to repeat himself.

No doubt, Robinson was having fun out there.

“You can always see that,” Taylor said. “It’s just like he’s playing in a pick-up game in your backyard. He smiles, but he’s got that lockdown focus. He’s so aware of absolutely everything going on in a game.”

It’s a trait that became apparent to teammates throughout training camp. They saw his running ability last year. They saw his passing game develop this spring.

The leadership Robinson provides clinched it for coaches. Robinson was the guy. His performance against UConn clinched it for everybody else.

As running back Michael Shaw said two days after the season-opening win, “As of September 4, it is Denard’s show.”

Pete Bigelow can be reached at (734) 623-2556, via email at petebigelow@annarbor.com and followed on Twitter @PeterCBigelow.