Meet Landon Robinson: How Navy star NG emerged as one of college football's freakiest players for Midshipmen

It's a normal spring workout session for the Navy football program, but there is a distinctly abnormal athlete preparing to squat an eye-popping amount of weight. Meet Navy nose guard Landon Robinson, who is about to squat 650 points with a barbell that had to be specially ordered because there wasn't one long enough. 

He is Navy's freak, a moniker earned thanks to his repeated inclusion in The Athletic's annual freaks list. The story chronicles the strongest, fastest and most physical players in college football, and Robinson checked in at No. 13 before the 2025 season. Freaks come in all packages, and the 6-foot, 285-pound Robinson is on the list for the third time. He is a two-time all-conference player in The American and one of the league's leaders in sacks, but it's the freak designation in which he takes a particular amount of pride.  

"I don't take it as any offense," Robinson told CBS Sports. "I think it's very cool. I think being able to be recognized in that sense, it's awesome. Hopefully I can continue to keep being a freak in the future and keep improving my status. I'm just thankful for it." 

A freak is not built in a day, and Robinson's journey to Navy started on the tumbling mats of his father Lance's gym at a young age. Robinson wrestled, ran track and played baseball and football in high school at Copley, Ohio. Lance was a gymnast at Kent State, and got Landon started early. When he was young, Robinson would watch "The Karate Kid" and go in the backyard and do stretches and flips. Robinson has always been a workout fiend, and he is an all-around athlete in an era of intense sports specialization at the youth level. What started on the mats evolved to his backyard where he took his footwork to the next level.  

"I would take a ladder and I would just go in my backyard and I would just do baseball related footwork stuff and a little bit of football too," Robinson said. "I would put weights on my legs, just trying too weigh myself down as much as I can to just build that speed. I would just do those all the time. I would get cones, all the ... all the different things. So the neighbors probably thought I was crazy, but I was just, I was just working out all the time" 

It was wrestling, even though he only did it for a year, that was actually his favorite sport. He says beyond the competitive aspect it taught him how to use his body in different ways to create leverage. For a relatively undersized defensive lineman who idolizes players like Aaron Donald, leverage can mean everything. Offensive lineman Hoke Smith said he'd never had lower pad level than Robinson across the hundreds of reps they've gone against each other in practice. 

With all of his experiences, Robinson is the poster child for the way Navy identifies and develops players. The Midshipmen won't get the 6-5, 275-pound specimens tailor made for NFL Sundays straight out of high school. They look for versatility, and switching positions is common as players' body types evolve. 

"That's how we recruit in general," defensive coordinator PJ Volker said. "Say you're recruiting a mike linebacker, right? Well, the next position for a mike to play for us if we're recruiting the right profile is for him to go to Raider, our boundary outside backer. So we wanna recruit a big, long mike that may grow into a Raider; we wanna recruit a Raider that might grow into a defensive end; a defensive end that might grow into a three technique -- into a nose tackle. Longer bodied corners that may grow into safeties, safeties that may go into linebackers." 

Volker was his area recruiter out of high school and thought Robinson could turn into a sawed off defensive end, perhaps around 265 pounds. Navy was his only FBS offer coming out of high school. So how did Robinson get from outside linebacker to head up on the center nose tackle? 

"With him, that wasn't part of the forecast," Volker said. 

He came to the Naval Academy as a 240-pound outside linebacker, and within months Robinson was up to 280. Robinson was known to set an alarm to wake up in the middle of the night and drink protein shakes, eat a Gatorade bar to put 600 calories in his body and then go back to bed. He would order full pizzas to eat after dinner in addition to the extra lifts he put in. He actually got all the way to 300 pounds, but it was deemed a bit too heavy for him to be an every down player considering all the movement Navy asks of its defensive linemen. 

During spring practice his sophomore year, a player on the interior of the defensive line had a shoulder injury, so Navy's coaches asked Robinson to fill in up front. He would chase plays down sideline to sideline and become a general disruptive force up front as he grew into his new position. But as Robinson bulked up, one thing didn't change: his speed. Robinson has been clocked with pads on running over 20 miles per hour, which at his current weight is eye catching. So much so that Navy's coaching staff felt they could use him on the kickoff team, and Robinson became one of 13 defensive linemen in the country, according to Navy, to play on kickoff coverage in 2023. 

"I was just flying down and running as fast as I can and hitting whoever comes in my way," Robinson said. "It was awesome. It was a lot of fun, a lot of adrenaline. And I think the first play of my collegiate career was against Notre Dame over in Ireland on kickoff. And I made the tackle first play, and I was ... I was ecstatic. It was insane. I ran a dude over, dude tried to block back and I put him all the way back into the returner and then made the tackle. I was jumping for joy. So it was super cool."

Robinson also has had chances to carry the ball at times. His famous fake punt in the 2024 Army-Navy game helped the Midshipmen to victory. He has three rushing attempts in his career for 87 yards. 

It wasn't just the coaches who noticed his transformation. Fellow defensive lineman Griffen Willis came to the Naval Academy during Robinson's sophomore year, and the two bonded quickly over a shared love of working out. It was Willis who spotted Robinson during his 650-pound lift -- and all of his heavy lifts -- although he doubts how much it's necessary as Robinson doesn't fail lifts, according to him. 

"It's not like we go out to parties or anything like that. We'd rather sacrifice the fun. This is our kind of fun, going to get better, and that relationship's built and, you know, I've had him over at my house. Parents love him to death. He's slept in my house. I'm super grateful to be a good friend of his. I can attest a lot of my success to him. And he's always pushed me. He's always like an itch in my brain. Like, I bet Landon's doing something. My mom has a trademark saying: What would Landon do? And see she's not wrong because what would Landon do? He'd probably go work out." 

There is an unanswered question in the Navy football program: How much can Robinson actually lift? His max squat is 665 pounds and a 465 pound bench press. Head strength and conditioning coach Jim Kiritsy thinks he can get up to a 500-pound bench and a 700-plus pound squat, but with a special bar already ordered to get the 650 squat, he won't be spending more of his budget just to find out. There are other ways to test strength beyond just raw maxing out, though. Kiristsky has challenged Robinson this season to up the bar velocity on his 600-pound squats so they move as fast as his 500-pound squats used to. 

"We put a lot of leashes on our weightlifting ability because we wanna keep ourselves safe and keep ourselves recovered," Willis said. "But if they took off the leash, I'm thinking he could squat upwards of 750, and I'm serious about that. I mean, that guy, he is an animal, he's actually crazy in the way that he squats. And I wish I could be like him, but I'm trying" 

On the field, the work in the weight room shows in his play strength and how quick he is getting off the ball. Smith has played defenders from Notre Dame and Oklahoma multiple times in his time at Navy, and he says Robinson is still the toughest player he's had to block. Robinson is so freakish that there are special rules for him at practice when he gets into the backfield, especially in pass rushing situations, as he often does. The play doesn't stop; Robinson simply peels off and quarterback Blake Horvath still gets the throw off. It's the only way they can practice their passing game at some points because Robinson is so disruptive.

He's soft-spoken but has a game that does the real talking for him. Robinson will take the field against Army for the last time in his college career, ending one of the freakiest football careers in the history of the Naval Academy.