All 105 is a Nittany Sports Now series profiling each Penn State football player. This edition will look at freshman defensive end Mason Robinson.
Height: 6-foot-3
Weight: 232 pounds
Hometown: Randallstown, Maryland
Before Penn State: Penn State received its second Class of 2023 commitment in as many days late Tuesday morning, Dec. 13, when Robinson committed a day after de–committing from Northwestern. Robinson (6-foot-4, 235 pounds) committed to Northwestern in late May 2022 but de-committed following his official visit to Penn State in December.
Robinson is joining quite a pipeline of standouts from his his high school, the McDonogh School in Owings Mills, Maryland. Also from the McDonogh School are current Penn State defenders Dani Dennis-Sutton, Curtis Jacobs, Dvon Ellies and PJ Mustipher. Robinson has a relationship with all four of those players. Although Mustipher is done with his college career, Dennis-Sutton, Jacobs and Ellies are still at Penn State.
Where he stands: Robinson’s part of a loaded defensive end room. Coach James Franklin said at his Penn State Media Day press conference that he feels Penn State has five defensive ends that it can “win with.” Those include Dennis-Sutton, Chop Robinson and fifth-year Adisa Isaac. So given Penn State’s depth and Robinson’s youth, its unlikely that he’ll get a lot of playing time in 2023. But learning behind those guys could prove invaluable for the freshman.
A quote by Robinson: Before making his commitment official, Robinson spoke with 247Sports about Penn State and coordinator Manny Diaz’s defense.
“They let the d-line play really vertical and let them attack,” Robinson said. That is the one thing that I loved. Now you allow the linebackers to do their job, play hard, play fast, and you play the run on the way to the quarterback. That was one of the cool things that they have going on with their defense.”
A quote about Robinson: ”That was big for us because I felt like we needed to sign some high school defensive ends in this class. That was big for us.” — coach James Franklin on Robinson at his post-signing day presser.
