Hawaii edge rushers balling out in camp

When it comes to the end game, the University of Hawaii football team has the edge.

Actually, two of them.

In the first eight practices of training camp, Elijah Robinson and Jackie Johnson III have established themselves as disruptive edge defenders. Whether aligned directly across the offensive tackle or as far wide as to the outside of a tight end’s shoulder pads, both have found paths into the pass pocket.

“We’ve been pushing each other,” Robinson said. “Our whole position group has been going out there day by day and we’re all competing but showing love and working.”

At 6 feet 4 and 260 pounds, Robinson has built a repertoire of moves culled from his six years of college experience.

“He’s a powerful guy,” associate head coach Chris Brown said of Robinson, who can bench-press 385 pounds and back-squat 475 pounds. “He can grab guys and throw ’em because he’s so strong. The thing is, he has really deceiving speed. Now he’s working on his technique.”

In 12 games and 170 snaps last season, Robinson made 25 tackles (18 solo) and missed only one.

Johnson, who is 6 feet and 245 pounds, relies on first-step burst, agility and the side scissors, in which he goes from a chopping motion to a two-handed, grab-and-pull move on a blocker’s hip. Jordan Pu‘u-Robinson, who coaches the defensive ends, taught Johnson the side-scissors technique. “I finally tried it,” Johnson said, “and I was like, ‘This is nuts.’ A lot can come off the two-handed swipe.”

Robinson and Johnson took circuitous routes to UH. Robinson began his college career as a redshirt at Louisburg in 2018. In 2020, he transferred to East Carolina. Robinson then joined the Rainbow Warriors last year. He recently was granted a medical hardship because of the season-ending hand injury he suffered at East Carolina in 2021. The ruling allows Robinson to play this season as a seventh-year senior.

“It was a long season of patience trusting God’s plans for me,” Robinson said of the exemption process.

Johnson, who grew in Manoa, was a standout linebacker at Saint Francis School. But with little warning, the students were notified that the school would be closing at the end of the 2018-19 academic year. “We had a good football team,” Johnson said. “We had a tight bond. It was rough. But it was OK. We all survived. We all went to different schools and we all balled out, represented.”

Johnson enrolled at Roosevelt High, reuniting with several Saint Francis teammates who lived in Pauoa Valley and Papakolea.

Johnson’s senior football season was canceled because of the pandemic in 2020. But that did not deter him from playing football. He signed up with the Trench Dawgz, a local club team that played full-padded games at parks across Oahu. The Dawgz practiced three times a week, then played a game each weekend. “It was park ball,” Johnson said. “We’d go to Kapiolani, Ewa Beach, Blaisdell (Park). We played wherever they had an open field.”

The Dawgz also traveled to Salt Lake City for a game in Utah.

After three semesters at Lawrence Tech in Southfield, Mich. — “it was the only opportunity I had to play (college) football” — Johnson transferred to UH last year. He played in four games.

“Jackie’s greatest gift is his motor,” Brown said. “That guy is non-stop, 100 mph. You talk about a kid who can make a move on a dime and is so powerful in his movements. And he keeps coming play after play after play. He has the ability to beat offensive linemen off the line. He’s so short he can get beneath the taller guys. It’s really hard to block him. Right now, there’s nobody faster (on the defensive line). The kid is special.”