SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly had a lengthy conversation with Corey Robinson on Monday in an attempt to instill some confidence back into the struggling junior wide receiver.
Robinson, who caught 40 passes for 539 yards and five touchdowns as a sophomore in 2014, only has five catches for 60 yards this year. He missed Notre Dame’s blowout win over UMass — which would’ve been a good opportunity for him to re-gain his confidence against a sub-optimal defense — with a sprained knee suffered in warm-ups.
Then, against Clemson, Robinson returned and dropped two key passes — one that would’ve been a 49-yard touchdown and another that would’ve converted Kelly’s heavily-criticized two-point conversion attempt early in the fourth quarter.
“Corey Robinson is going to get the job done,” Kelly said. “I believe in Corey. Corey's got to believe in himself, and he will. He's got to go attack the football. He's letting the football come to him. He's letting it eat him up a little bit, but I believe in Corey.”
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Robinson is squarely behind senior Chris Brown in Notre Dame’s boundary-side receiver pecking order. Brown’s had plenty to do with that — the South Carolina native has 20 catches for 261 yards and two scores this year and didn’t deserve the cruelty of his goal-line fumble against Clemson after he played well in Death Valley.
But Robinson hasn’t built on that promising sophomore season in which he came up with a number of key plays. His best game was an eight-catch, 99-yard performance at Florida State, and had C.J. Prosise not been guilty of a pass interference in the final seconds, he would’ve had three, not two, touchdowns in Tallahassee.
Kelly admitted there's a "reasonable" line of thinking that junior Torii Hunter Jr. — who’s primarily played slot receiver but has good versatility — and freshman Equanimeous St. Brown — who’s impressed coaches with his straight-line speed but is blocked by Will Fuller on the field side — could supplant Robinson behind Brown.
Ideally for Notre Dame, though, Robinson gets his confidence back and is able to put these first five games behind him.
“Once he starts attacking the football, I think we're going to see somebody that can make the plays that we expect him to make,” Kelly said. “So I'm optimistic that we're going to see the guy that we need to see on Saturday.”