Tavius Robinson is still learning how great he can be
Dec. 28—OXFORD — Being the naturally polite person he is, Ole Miss senior defensive end Tavius Robinson felt a bit bad telling his new employers he had to quit on such short-notice.
But the average member of the 1-800-Got-Junk? moving services team in Guelph, Ontario doesn't have an opportunity to play Southeastern Conference football.
Given the circumstances, he didn't have much choice. 1-800-Got-Junk? moving services could wait.
"The crazy thing is, right before I came here, I had got a job with like, 'You Got Junk,'" Robinson said flashing, as he generally does, an ear-to-ear grin. "I just got hired because I had needed money to pay for school coming up."
Under any normal circumstances, Robinson would be in his fifth year at the University of Guelph, his hometown school, preparing to fight his way through an NFL minicamp for a shot at a future career in football. Robinson's father, Patrick, and his brother Junior both played football growing up. Junior played at Guelph and won two Grey Cups in the CFL, the league's Super Bowl equivalent. Robinson himself is listed at 6-foot-6, 265 pounds, though his mother, Lindy, will tell you he's an inch or two taller.
That was always the path he was meant to be on, Robinson thought. The 2020 campaign, though, forced his hand.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused the Canadian college football season to be canceled. That left Robinson with a choice — sit out or trek to the United States to play major college football.
So, when he wasn't working out in a friend's shed with a squat rack because of the shutdowns, Robinson put together a highlight tape of himself. He screen recorded clips, cut them up and uploaded them onto Instagram and Twitter.
Those clips landed him a scholarship at Ole Miss, where he's evolved into a stalwart in the middle of the Rebels' defense and a bonafide NFL Draft prospect (ESPN ranks him as the 10th-best outside linebacker in the upcoming class).
"That's the thing. I think I knew it, that I always could play more. But there wasn't really a defining moment," Robinson said. "I would have just went the route of playing there and trying to get an NFL rookie minicamp invite."
Despite his 10.5 sacks, 13 tackles for loss and 89 total stops in parts of three years in Oxford, even Robinson is still learning what he is capable of. He's never been one to brag about his gifts — size, athleticism and character that NFL scouts salivate over.
But his greatest gift, according to his mother, might be his humility. And that trait is now paying off tenfold.
"Tavius had an opportunity before he stayed local, and he didn't. He didn't put himself out there soon enough, I don't think. But people always told him how good he was," Lindy added. "But I still, to this day, don't think he realizes how good he is."
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Ryan Sheahan admittedly can't take credit for recruiting Robinson. That recruitment, frankly, handled itself. But Sheahan, the head coach at Guelph Robinson's last season with the Gryphons in 2019, felt his defensive end was different.
"I show up on the scene doing a whole bunch of roster evaluations, personnel evaluations," Sheahan said. "And I'm like, 'Holy cow, who is this guy?' Not only does he stand out in the room, but like, he's physically mature. He's a really hard worker, he's humble. He's kind, (has a) million-dollar smile."
Canadian players making their way to the United States to play football isn't uncommon, but their route is usually different than the one Robinson took. Allen Trieu, 247Sports' Midwest recruiting expert, said he scouts anywhere from 20-40 Canadian high school football players a year. Trieu is based out of Detroit, Michigan, which is just under 200 miles from Guelph.
Scouts don't often make their way up across the border to look at prospects, Trieu said; those players generally come down to the United States for camps. Trieu, for example, said he's probably only been up to Canada twice in his 15 years scouting.
Top Canadian prospects discovered at a young age occasionally finish their high school careers in the United States, in hopes of increased exposure. Evaluating Canadian players, though, is increasingly difficult given they are often far better than their opposition (Robinsons' brother Keyon, for instance, is a 6-foot-6 high school receiver still trying to catch the right eyes).
"The level of player is typically good, there have been a lot of Division I guys, Power Five guys. The competition, in general, is not very good, I would say. Not compared to the states," Trieu said. "If you go to a high school football game in Detroit, you may see two teams that have double-digit college prospects apiece where, up there, that player might be the only one on the field."
Lindy remembers telling her son he had what it took to play in America. But he didn't really think of himself as a potential college football player until his last few years of high school, she said. He never attended any prospect camps in the United States. He had offers in Canada other than Guelph, but he wanted to stay home.
"I feel like it wasn't until he got probably to the end of his high school years where he started to see like, 'Oh, like maybe I could go to the local university and play football,'" Lindy said. "But I would say, 'Don't you see you're better than this? Don't you see who you are?' He didn't want to put himself out there or show himself off."
Canadian college football works differently than its American counterpart. Only 27 schools sponsor college football across four different conferences. That's compared to the more than 600 programs in the NCAA across the FBS, FCS, Division II and Division III levels.
Smaller-scale aside, football culture in Canada is strong, Sheahan said. But it isn't the same sort of presence it is in the United States. The Vanier Cup — the national title game for Canadian College Football — had just 5,940 fans in attendance last year.
Scholarships, too, operate on a different scale. The maximum a student-athlete can get in Ontario University Athletics, the league Guelph belongs to, only runs up to $4,500. To put that in perspective, tuition itself at Guelph is upward of $20,000 a year. Most student-athletes work jobs in the offseason to help offset the cost of tuition — hence Tavius' gig with 1-800-Got-Junk?
"I remember I was working landscaping in the summer, going into my first year at university and then going into my second year as well," Robinson said.
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People Robinson's size aren't supposed to move the way he does. But, somehow, some way, he manages to glide in that massive frame of his.
"Typically you can say, 'the taller the guy, the more awkward the runner.' But he runs like a receiver," Sheahan said. "And I was like, 'Man, do you have hands? Can we put you in on the goal line?' And he was like, 'No coach.' He was very honest about it.
" ... His speed's a gift. His length is a gift."
The rare physical attributes were accompanied by a mindset, Sheahan adds. There was a want-to, a desire, a determination in Robinson that's equally rare.
Robinson has been on a strict meal plan for years, his mother said. She would know; she prepped his meals — ample helpings of beef and rice — in an effort to put some weight on him. She also brought him groceries when he played at Guelph. He didn't go out drinking. He only drank water, not even soda. He took every practice snap like it was his last.
"He made everyone around him better, is the best way to put it. Because he tries his butt off in every single period goes hard," Sheahan said. "And, you know, talk about the offensive linemen getting to go up against the quality guy like that every night in practice. So he made us all better."
Over two seasons at Guelph, Robinson racked up 13.5 sacks. He was named second-team all-conference OUA after his second year, recording 8.5 sacks and 11.5 tackles for loss.
Sheahan foresaw Robinson as a captain when he became an upperclassman. He told his staff people needed to start scouting him; there was a place for him at the next level.
"He loves the game. And you have to admire the fact that he believed in himself," Sheahan said. "Even though he's humble and kind, he's confident, and rightfully so."
Tavius' path was fairly clear by the end of his second season: finish his college career strong and find a way into the professional ranks, whether it be in the CFL or NFL.
Then came March 2020.
Canada was among the countries hit hardest by prolonged restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Gyms were shut down, as were university campuses as a whole. That's when he started squatting in what he described as a friend's "four-by-four" shed.
"They were pushing cars down the street. They had ropes on the porch. I don't even know what they were doing," Lindy said with a laugh. "But they were doing anything they could to try and stay (in-shape), because nobody knew when it was going to end."
Months passed without official word on the season's status. Then, on June 8, Ontario University Athletics announced all of its fall sports were canceled.
Always on top of his film reels, Robinson put together his highlights and posted them to social media upon learning the news. He and his roommates at the time created a list of coaches to send the tape to as well.
Robinson remembers working out in the aforementioned shed, taking calls from coaches between workouts. It was a crazy time, he remembered. His production and size were tantalizing and, relatively speaking, he was a blank canvas with room to grow.
"Everyone always told me my whole life, you should be D1, you should be playing D1 (and) whatever," he said. "So my roommates were like 'now's your chance to go. You're not going to be here next year."
Still, he felt bad. Robinson received offers from major college football programs, yet he was enveloped by a guilt that he felt he was letting his Guelph teammates down.
He confided his feelings to Sheahan, who drove to Robinson's house to chat. Sheahan gave the giant a fittingly large hug and told him the truth: He had to seize this moment.
"I think in coaching, you never want to hold anybody back from chasing their dream. And the fact that this was his, and he had the opportunity, and we were confident that with his measurables, his speed, his work ethic that he definitely would have a chance," Sheahan said. "He had the blessing of us, all his teammates, staff. We were all behind him."
With international travel restrictions in place, Robinson couldn't take any visits. He had only ever been to the United State to visit family in Florida, he said. Still, he had to sift through suitors that included other SEC schools.
Robinson and his family had Zoom conversations with coaches. They also looked at the defensive end rooms at the schools, Lindy said, in order to see what the best path to immediate playing time might be. The whole situation played out in less than a calendar month.
Ole Miss was the first SEC school to offer him, and Robinson's' loyalty pushed him toward Oxford.
"I just had a gut feeling that it was the right choice," he said. "It was like a gut thing, like, I'm staying with the guys who gave me the shot and start."
Former assistant Marquise Watson picked Robinson up from the Memphis airport. The first place Watson took him was Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. A wide-eyed Robinson glanced up at the 64,000-plus seats.
"I looked out on the field, saw the stadium, and I'm like, 'How am I going to play in front of all these people?'" he said.
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Every Saturday, the Robinsons invite some of their closest friends over. The planning for the Ole Miss tailgate begins days earlier, though. The entire Guelph community partakes.
Lindy, Patrick and a pair of her friends drove 16 hours consecutively from Guelph to Oxford to watch the Rebels play Austin Peay last year. Lindy said the family attends one game a year.
Robinson saved his best for last in 2022, recording a career-high six sacks and three forced fumbles through 12 games. He is firmly on NFL Draft boards.
Robinson didn't arrive in Mississippi until about a week-and-a-half before fall camp was set to begin in 2020. He immediately had to quarantine in a hotel room by himself for two weeks.
When he finally got onto the practice field, there was a slight adjustment. Robinson hadn't generally have to worry about technique in Canada. His American counterparts, though, were better schooled and more naturally gifted. He figured out rather quickly he had work to do, particularly in terms of using his hands.
But as his game on the field progressed, Robinson said he got used to the flow of life in Oxford. There were never any complaints, his mother said. No second-guessing. Just joy.
"Tavius has so much more of a ceiling to hit, and he hasn't even touched it," Lindy said. "And so, how do you become better? You play with better."
Lindy is confident her son would have found his way into the NFL one way or another, but she admits the path her son has taken changed his trajectory. Robinson took a chance, and it paid off.
"Football is a very unique game on this planet, where our time to be able to play is very finite. When football's over, it's over. So, if you really care about the game and want to see how you can take it ... you have to go like hell," Sheahan said. "So, put in the work necessary to give yourself a chance to play it as long as you can. Tavius not only has been blessed with special gifts physically, but has a work ethic that is allowing his physical gifts to shine."
Ole Miss has one more game to play — Wednesday's Texas Bowl against Texas Tech. Robinson will be off to prepare for the NFL Combine and draft in the weeks that follow.
These days, with the form he's flashed in Oxford and the football future that seemingly resides ahead, he's not going to have to worry about working extra shifts at 1-800-Got-Junk?
Because Robinson is closer than ever to reaching his dreams.
"He's earned it. He's put in a lot of work. He's going to continue to put in work. So no matter whether he goes to the next level or not ... " Lindy says before taking a brief pause. "When he goes to the NFL. Let's put it that way. I feel like whatever team gets him is just going to be so lucky. They're getting not just a great football player, but they're getting an honest, amazing human being."
MICHAEL KATZ is the Ole Miss athletics reporter for the Daily Journal. Contact him at michael.katz@djournal.com.
