Ty Robinson is returning to Nebraska for sixth and final year

Nebraska football defensive lineman Ty Robinson dropped a bit of a bombshell on Tuesday: He's coming back.

Robinson announced that he will be returning to Nebraska for a sixth and final year, giving the Husker defense arguably the best news it could hope to hear with the exception of Tony White, if he elects to forgo head coaching opportunities to come back for a second year as Nebraska's defensive coordinator.

Robinson has seen his NFL stock rise in his fifth year of college football and first year under Matt Rhule, White and defensive line coach Terrance Knighton. He acknowledged roughly four weeks ago that he would have a tough decision to face at the end of the season on "if I'm ready to go or not" to the NFL and the next stage of his career.

Maybe he is ready to go, and maybe he would be drafted in a good position in the NFL. But after long talks with the coaching staff, both sides agreed that the best decision is to give it one more year at Nebraska.

“I’ve sat down with the coaches already, and we thought that it’d be in (my) best interests that I come back for another year. So I’ll be returning for a sixth year," Robinson said. “I put a lot of thought into it. I was out last winter and spring with a surgery, so I really only had two months to get ready for football. Coach Rhule and Coach Knighton kind of made a joke when we played last week that it was really Week 3 for me for football when I was playing against NIU just because that’s how far behind I was with football. And also, I just think with my dreams and aspirations to go onto the next level, I think coming back another year to really sharpen some tools and some skills that I need will really help.”

“I had (the conversation) with (Rhule) on Sunday. He loved it, he was all for it. I asked him to be totally real with me, and me and him both had kind of the same points just on why I should come back. They told me they weren’t gonna convince me to come back, they wanted it to be my decision. I put a lot of thought into it, and I came back with that decision.”

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Robinson did not go the Michael Jordan route with a simple "I'm back" message to announce his return. The Huskers' soon-to-be sixth-year veteran dove deeper into his decision to come back, saying on Tuesday that it was a long thought-out process and that he's happy with his decision.

Though he said a month ago that it would be a difficult decision to make, Robinson on Tuesday said that he doesn't feel as if it's necessarily a weight off his shoulders.

"I mean, I wasn’t really stressing about it that much, thinking if I was gonna go to the league or if I was gonna stay for another year," Robinson said. "It is what it is, at the end of the day, and wherever I would go I’d make sure something would happen. And if it was my time, it’s my time. If not, then so be it. There’s more to life than just football. But I love this game so much, so I’m ready to come back and keep going.”

He got off to a bit of a slow start this year after undergoing offseason shoulder surgery, beginning the season from scratch in a new defensive scheme with a new defensive role and then missing most of the second half against Minnesota and all of the first half against Colorado following a targeting call in the season opener versus the Gophers.

Over the past five games, however, Robinson has been the most explosive and productive version of himself. He is playing the best football of his Nebraska career, and now he'll be building on that exceptional second half of the season with another full year to build himself up even more.

Ultimately, the decision of the Huskers' star defensive lineman – arguably the top player on a defense ranked top 20 nationally in scoring defense, total defense and rushing defense – to return is a testament to the healthy leadership and operations of the Huskers' program.

“I’m really impressed with Coach Rhule and everyone on this staff," Robinson said. "I mean, he runs a tight ship, and it’s pretty sound up there. It definitely goes into (the decision), being in that environment and being able to stay for another year knowing that there’s not gonna be anything crazy going on. It’s all gonna be planned out, it’s all gonna be how it was, probably, this year.”

That backs up the assessment Robinson made on Oct. 24, when he talked about the impact of the new staff and how valuable it is to have a former NFL head coach leading the program (Rhule) and a former NFL draftee and longtime NFL veteran as his position coach (Knighton).

“It’s definitely a word of the wise type of deal because they’ve been real with us," Robinson said that day. "They’ll show tape, they’ll show like ‘If you play like this, you’re not gonna get drafted, it’s gonna bump you down or you’re just not gonna be able to make it in the next level.’ I think Coach Rhule has done a really great job of showing us old guys, but especially relaying that message to the young guys, ‘If you’re not gonna do it my way, because my way has been shown to work and it’s been proven if this is what you really wanna do, then it can get you there.’ I think he’s done a really good job of (relaying) that message.”

Robinson's rise has seen its most explosive run ever since the Northwestern game, in which Rhule said Robinson was "absolutely dominant" and put together a performance that shoots a player up NFL draft boards.

“Other guys sometimes get sacks because he runs up the field and makes the quarterback run for his life," Robinson said. "The last sack of the game (against Northwestern) he beats the guy one-on-one. He was absolutely dominant in my mind. By far, Ty’s best game. The type of game that moves you up a couple rounds in the draft. I thought he looked excellent.

"Again, I always go back to the tape and not the stat line. At the end of the game when I’m walking out of the media room and I see Nash (Hutmacher) there and I’m like ‘Hey they picked you huh?’ and he’s like ‘Yeah I had two and a half sacks.’ I can’t even tell that sometimes during the game with what’s happening. But when I watch the tape, I just think Ty hit his stride and that doesn’t mean Nash didn’t, they are both hitting their stride. Then Cam (Lenhardt) comes in and Jimari (Butler) is playing well. I think Ty is someone that the other team has to take account of when he plays.”

And now they'll have to do it for one more year.