By: Sean Cartell
Finish what you started.
That’s the mantra that’s been instilled into UTSA Football’s sixth-year safety Ken Robinson since his first-grade year.
“I ran select track my first-grade year,” Robinson said. “It was probably one of the worst decisions that I’ve made in my life. I absolutely hated it from the first practice to the last track meet. My dad told me that I had to finish what I started. That’s been going through my mind the whole time while I’ve been here.”
Robinson has seen it all since first arriving at UTSA in 2019 – coaching changes, position changes, the rise of the program and a change in the college athletics landscape. Still he’s committed to being the best he can be each day for the Roadrunners.
He has been a mainstay in UTSA’s lineup each year of his collegiate career despite finding himself low on the depth chart leading into several seasons. Robinson believes his positive attitude and willingness to learn has helped increase his playing time.
“I think it starts by being coachable,” he said. “I’ve seen a lot of talented guys be in and out of the building just like that. I feel like it’s not about the talent much more than it is about being coachable. It doesn’t matter how talented you are, coaches want a player that they can trust out on the field and they feel comfortable putting out there.”
Playing cornerback in 2020, Robinson was a Conference USA All-Freshman Team selection and, despite appearing in all 14 games in 2021, felt he wasn’t playing up to his potential that season. Jess Loepp, the team’s current defensive coordinator, suggested a shift to the safety position.
“After the 2021 season, I definitely could have done better and made more plays in that season,” Robinson said. “Since he got here in 2020, Coach Loepp has always had his eye on me as some type of safety. After that season, he wanted to make that switch. I was a little skeptical at first but, just going through it for that spring and fall, I was bought in.”
Robinson had also played both cornerback and safety at South Grand Prairie High School, so it wasn’t a completely unknown position for him. He also favors the safety position within UTSA’s defensive formation.
“With the way our defensive scheme works, a lot of the time, I’m the unblocked player, so I can get a lot of tackles and lots of one on ones,” Robinson said. “A lot of the base defense that we’re in, I’m kind of in a man technique so I just love being in that space because it kind of reminds me of playing corner. It’s kind of like the best of both worlds for me back there.”
Robinson was inspired at the safety position by a number of the former defensive standouts for the Roadrunners, several of whom currently play in the NFL, but it was former safety Carl Austin III, now a sports performance coach for the UTSA women’s basketball and volleyball teams, who set the example.
“He was the leader of that safety group my true freshman year,” Robinson said. “Just watching him communicate, watching him play and watching him give energy to his teammates, that’s something that I gravitated towards. All the guys ahead of me were natural-born leaders. I wanted to play like them and I wanted to lead like them, so I’ve had some amazing teachers.”
Over the years, Robinson has been part of the transformation of the UTSA Football program, helping the squad win a pair of Conference USA Championships and earn the first bowl win in school history last season. Helping put the Roadrunners on the map has been a point of personal satisfaction.
“I just take tremendous pride in it because I feel like I’ve had a part in turning us into a national program,” he said. “Before I got here, I would tell people I was going to UTSA and they would ask ‘where is that?’ or ‘Are they Division I?’ A couple of years later, they see us on the top-25 rankings.”
Robinson earned his bachelor’s degree in finance from UTSA and is currently pursuing his Master’s in Business Administration from the school, made possible by his lengthy playing career. He has completed several summer internships in the corporate world.
“I decided on that after the COVID season because I redshirted my freshman year and got the COVID year, so that was an automatic six years that I knew I was going to have back in 2020,” Robinson said. “I knew if I got my undergrad degree done in time, I would have enough time to finish my master’s by the time I finish my eligibility. I should be done by this December.”
As Robinson’s time in the Orange and Blue comes to a close, he looks back on a fulfilling football career that has made an important impact on his life.
“I just have a tremendous amount of pride for this city and this school and I’ll take it with me wherever I go,” Robinson said. “I don’t think anywhere outside of UTSA could offer me what this school has offered me for the past few years, which is the chance to play the game I love. I have just been a guy who pounded the fist each day and didn’t worry about what was going on outside of what I needed to do. I hope to be remembered as a guy who helped his teammates out a lot.”