Utah State football: Robert Turbin marking off calendar, counting down days to return

LOGAN ±— By the time he takes the field for Utah State’s season opening game against Auburn on Saturday, it will have been 644 days since Robert Turbin last took the field in an Aggie uniform.

It will have been 644 days since the then-sophomore running back put together arguably the best game of his collegiate career, gaining 183 total yards en route to a five-touchdown performance in leading USU to its biggest win of the 2009 season on the road over a bowl-bound Idaho team.

It will have been 644 days, but who’s counting? The answer is Turbin himself.

“I’ve got a calendar in my room, and I just cross out every day, with the next day closer to being able to play the game that I had one time thought I lost,” Turbin said.

Following a sophomore season in 2009 where he rushed for 1,296 yards, gained another 418 yards through the air and reached the end zone 18 times total, Turbin’s 2010 season fell victim to what he personally describes as a freak injury that resulted in a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) for the junior running back. With football out of the picture for a year, Turbin was faced with new challenges in rehabilitation of his injury, a temporary change of role for the USU football team and a changed perspective of what is important both in football and in life.

“It’s just been one of those things where you learn a lot from it,” Turbin said. “Sometimes life is going to hit you right in the mouth.”

Learning from it is exactly what Turbin did. Facing a lengthy rehab process and unable to make an immediate impact on the field, head coach Gary Andersen approached Turbin about trading in his shoulder pads for a headset in 2010 to make his impact felt from the sidelines. Ask Andersen what aspect developed most during that brief coaching tenure, and he’ll tell you that Turbin developed a much stronger sense of consistent leadership.

“Last when he was basically a student coach, I think he really learned how to be a consistent leader and really helped his teammates look at him as a true leader day in and day out. I don’t think you can make leaders. I think leaders are truly born, but I think you can educate young men that have an opportunity to be leaders and Robert has done a nice job in getting involved with that,” Andersen said.