Robbie Bain
Offensive Guard
6′-3″, 290 lbs.
True Freshman (on scholarship, 5 years to play 4)
Bolingbrook HS / Bolingbrook, IL

ALE Ranking last year: NR

What I Know About Him:

Bain comes from Bolingbrook High School. Home of OUR BEST RECRUIT IN FOUR YEARS AARON BAILEY. And the last time Bailey and Bain played on the Memorial Stadium turf, they walked off the field as state champions.

Bain is a guard type. He probably doesn’t have the height or the reach to play offensive tackle. His job now is to mold his body into Big Ten offensive lineman size and shape. Lots of weights. And pizza.

What I Expect From Him:

You all know what’s coming. In the next few weeks, you’ll hear “redshirt, lift, get stronger, put on some weight, learn the playbook” about 20 times. It’s the thing every team does with 70% of their freshmen. The first year is all about weight gaining and acclimating.

For Bain, I’m putting him at #86 because of our plethora of offensive guard/center types. If he was an offensive tackle, I might push him up higher on this list and say that he’d have a chance to play as a true freshman. He’s a guard type, so I’ll say just the opposite. Redshirt, lift, get stronger, put on some weight, and learn the playbook. I’ve always said that the ideal situation for an offensive lineman is three years of weights and playbooks and then two years as a starter. Which means we should see Bain again around spring ball in 2015.

Which, by the way, is the surprise Rose Bowl year. Someone tweeted that to me a few weeks ago and now it’s all I can think about. The Big Ten schedule is Michigan, Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Northwestern at home, with road trips to Purdue, Penn State, Indiana, and Iowa. That’s probably one of the more favorable Big Ten schedules we’ll get in the next 10 years. We also have Western Illinois and Kent State on the schedule, so unless we add to crazy games for the other two, the non-conference should be managable. And OUR BEST RECRUIT IN FOUR YEARS AARON BAILEY will be the starter at QB.

And it will be Year Four for the Beckman regime. Barry Alvarez won the Big Ten in his fourth year at Wisconsin. Kirk Ferentz won the Big Ten in his fourth year at Iowa. Mark Dantonio won the Big Ten in his fourth year at Michigan State. The fourth year is the year when everything you’ve been trying to implement starts to click. When you match that up with our fortunate schedule, well, let’s officially begin the 2015 Rose Bowl Watch.

Wait, this post was supposed to be about Robbie Bain. Redshirt, lift, get stronger, put on some weight, learn the playbook…