The Cardinal Countdown: 75 Days Until Kickoff

#75 Robbie Bell

Class: RS Senior

Ht/Wt: 6-5/305

Position: Offensive Line

Hometown: Hoschton, GA

Twitter: @thatguy_robbie1

Thoughts: Robbie came off a redhsirt as a freshman and was an immediate starter, starting all 13 games in 2017 at center, then for a reason unbeknownst to me Mr. Bell did not “ring” in the 2018 season hardly at all. New coach, new scheme, and Robbie was back as a full time stater in 2019 and started all 13 games at right guard. I mean, I’m not fully blaming the lackluster results of 2018 on the removal of Bell from the lineup, that would be silly, but removing my bias, and looking at it very analytically, I’ll say the teams performance dropping was only about 95% due to him not being on the field. Conservatively speaking, of course.

I projected in 2017 that the Killer Bs (Bentley, Bell, Becton) would be the mainstay on the line for four seasons with rotating pieces around them and I guess I was partially correct, minus a weird no show in 2018 and that whole NFL draft thing crushing my prognostications. There is no doubt that Bell has earned a spot up front as I’ve touted his presence and abilities since game 1 back against Purdue. I snagged a quick clip from the opener last year as I recall a few instances where a line that got pushed around quite a bit in 2018 did some pushing of their own. In the play below you can see Bell (#75) and Haycraft (#60) creating a wall and just straight up pushing beef down the field five yards for Hawkins to pick up the first. A great sign of things to come the rest of 2019…

For his final act I’d anticipate we see Bell once again start every game at right guard and be a leader up front. The line improved last year, and even though they are replacing one/two guys I think we see another step forward from the group in 2020. Bell has been a piece of this line for what seems like the better part of the time the Cards have been in the ACC, including his recruitment back in 2015. He’s been a great ambassador for the program on the field and off the field as well being named to the All-ACC Academic team 2 of the last 3 years. Outside of my normal fandom of the team I would really like to see guys like Robbie, Dorsey, Dez, etc finish out their careers with a solid season and good memories to look back on, helping to rebuild the program back up to what we know Louisville football can be.

Sweet Tweet:

Lots of retweets from Robbie but this one hit me. Don’t make me go on a rant about shopping carts with only 75 days until football….I’ll do it, but don’t make me. Put your dang cart back ya bums.