Sting Factor: Roderick Robinson flips from UCLA to Georgia

When a major program loses a key recruit, Rivals.com takes a look at how big of a blow it is to the respective school, analyzing it from a local and national level. To quantify the “sting” of each decommitment, we assign a score from one to 10, with one being no big deal and 10 being a catastrophic hit.

RELATED: News after Robinson's flip

*****

MORE: OT Clay Wedin discusses Michigan State decommitment

CLASS OF 2023 RANKINGS: Rivals250 | Team | Position | State

CLASS OF 2024 RANKINGS: Rivals250 | Team | Position | State

CLASS OF 2025 RANKINGS: Rivals100

TRANSFER PORTAL: Stories/coverage | Message board

*****

Roderick Robinson II is one of the best running backs in the 2023 class, so his commitment to UCLA in May was definitely a big deal to the Bruins.

The San Diego Lincoln four-star has the physical makeup, power and athletic ability to be an early contributor at the next level, and it looked like that would be at UCLA.

But Robinson’s recruitment drastically picked up in recent months and after visits to Texas A&M and Georgia over the last few weeks he flipped his commitment to the Bulldogs on Monday.

Georgia’s success developing running backs, playing in the SEC and playing for position coach Dell McGee were all reasons why Robinson decided to make his flip.

Either way, UCLA had a stud local running back committed, and despite the Bruins being off to a 6-0 start to the season, they couldn’t keep Robinson in the fold.

The Bruins have only six players committed and are tied for second-to-last in the Pac-12 team rankings with Cal, and only ahead of Arizona State.

There’s no way around it, the loss of Roderick Robinson II to Georgia is a significant one for UCLA — albeit not completely unexpected. The feeling all along has been that the four-star running back would continue to look at other options even after his summer commitment to the Bruins.

He intended to make visits to other schools, which ultimately led him to take official visits to Texas A&M and Georgia. Still, not being able to keep his commitment is a blow for a program that needs some positive momentum on the high school recruiting front. Robinson had been the highest-rated commit in UCLA’s now six-person 2023 recruiting class. He looked like the eventual heir apparent to Zach Charbonnet in the Bruins’ backfield and a future star at the position.

One positive for Chip Kelly and company is that another one of the running backs the program offered earlier in the cycle is starting to take a look around. Four-star Notre Dame commit Jayden Limar recently visited Washington and Arizona, and he had UCLA among his top nine at one point before picking the Irish. The Bruins could also dip back into the transfer portal at the position, which is something the team has already done previously to land Charbonnet. UCLA’s on-field success has not yet translated to recruiting success this year, and losing its top-rated commit isn’t going to help the perception. - Matt Moreno, BruinBlitz.com

Sting Factor: 8

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS WITH UCLA FANS AT BRUINBLITZ.COM

Robinson is a phenomenal talent, and that’s evidenced by the numbers he’s putting up this season: 1,657 yards and 24 touchdowns. Not only has he been a stat machine but Robinson looks the part of a college-ready running back. He is muscled up and physical but still has the athletic ability to make things happen on the edge.

This one hurts. The Bruins have a running back commitment in three-star Donavyn Pellot, but Robinson is one of the top players at that position in the entire class and an argument could be made that he is under-ranked as the No. 7 running back nationally.

Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson and others have come into California and the West in recent years for some of the best players in the country. UCLA had one committed in Robinson but couldn’t keep him as the understandable appeal of Georgia was just too much for the four-star to turn down. - Adam Gorney, Rivals national recruiting director

Sting Factor: 9