Texas Football: Was Bijan Robinson not used enough in second half?

True freshman stud Texas football running back Bijan Robinson had just a dozen touches in the Alamo Bowl win over the Colorado Buffaloes on Dec. 29.

The way that No. 20 ranked Texas football showed out in the second half of the Alamo Bowl, against all odds given their lack of depth and experience at that point on both sides of the ball, was pretty special. Fourth-year Texas head coach Tom Herman saw the younger players on his team breakthrough in a big way to push this team to a dominant Alamo Bowl victory by the final score of 55-23 over first-year head coach Karl Dorrell and the former Big 12 foe Colorado Buffaloes.

On the night of Dec. 29, Herman and the Longhorns got a nice seventh win to round out the crazy 2020 season by a 32-point margin over the Buffs in the Alamo Bowl. Texas got contributions from all over the place, and from a number of new faces on both sides of the ball.

But one of the brightest stars for the Longhorns in this win over Colorado was a familiar face to fans on the Forty Acres. The former elite five-star recruit and Arizona native true freshman running back Bijan Robinson was an absolute stud for this offense on Dec. 29.

Robinson had a massive game for the Longhorns in the Alamo Bowl win, with more than 180 rushing yards on just 10 carries (good for more than 18 yards per carry). And he amassed three total touchdowns on just 12 touches in total in this game (two receiving and one rushing).

Still it was a tad surprising that sophomore running back Roschon Johnson nabbed the same amount of rushing attempts in the Alamo Bowl that Robinson did. Despite that, Johnson finished up the game with just 32 rushing yards and one rushing score on those 10 carries (3.2 yards per carry).

There were questions that emerged during this game as to why Herman and his staff didn’t want to give Robinson more touches with the insane efficiency he put on display. That is a valid point from the media and Longhorns fan base as to why Robinson didn’t get more touches in this postseason romping of the Buffs.

Robinson amassed a whopping 355 rushing yards on just 19 carries (just shy of 20 yards per carry), to go along with six total touchdowns and 88 receiving yards, in the last two games combined. He’s going into the offseason very much on a high note, but not with a big workload in the last two games of the season.

Robinson and the Longhorns got to finish up the 2020 season with a record of 7-3 (5-3 Big 12), winning their last two games by a combined margin of more than 70 points. And Robinson himself finished up his true freshman campaign with 703 rushing yards (more than seven yards per carry), four rushing touchdowns, 196 receiving yards, and two receiving touchdowns.