Former University of Texas (UT) Longhorns running back Bijan Robinson didn’t wait long to hear National Football League (NFL) Commissioner Roger Goodell call his name at the annual draft on Thursday.
A projected first-rounder, the 21-year-old speedster from Tucson, Arizona went to the Atlanta Falcons as the eighth overall pick.
“Like I said, God had it written all along!” Robinson said in a tweet the day after the draft began. “So happy to get rolling with the Atlanta Falcons.”
According to a report from Austin NBC affiliate KXAN, Robinson’s the first Longhorns running back to be selected since 2017, when the Houston Texans landed D’Onta Foreman in the third round, as well as the first to come off the board before the No. 10 selection since the late Cedric Benson, who was taken by the Chicago Bears with the fourth pick in 2005.
Robinson made the decision to forego his senior season and test the NFL waters last December, Austin Journal reported.
Robinson’s 2022 campaign saw him become the lone Longhorn to amass more than 1,500 rushing yards and 300 receiving yards in a season, the feat good enough to place him fourth on UT’s all-time rushing yards list with 3,410 yards on the ground, for which he earned the 2022 Doak Walker Award that’s presented to the nation’s best running back, the publication reported.
He bowed out of the Longhorns’ Alamo Bowl appearance to prepare for the draft.
ESPN reported that amid the purported preference for prolific passing games, Robinson hopes his selection sets off new a trend.
"I know the running back position in the top 10 is really, really rare," he said, per ESPN. “But I mean, it's pretty cool to be a guy that can share that and to show the younger kids in the college football, the younger running backs, that it's possible – you just got to do everything the right way and just be as effective as you can for their program."
Robinson’s wish has a chance of coming true as four picks later, the Detroit Lions used the No. 12 pick they obtained from the Arizona Cardinals to secure the services of the University of Alabama’s Jahmyr Gibbs.