John Robertson poised for big finish with Villanova

If Villanova quarterback John Robertson is shaking the rust off and building back his arm strength during the second week of Villanova's preseason camp - which he admits - that's because most of Robertson's throws this summer were in a Manhattan park on the Lower East Side, at off hours, after working 12 hours a day in a Wall Street internship.

Robertson can't know his exact career path. How many of us do? What seems obvious is that this guy has a bright one and likely a lucrative one. The unanswered part is whether it will involve throwing a football.

Having a future in his sport isn't some pipe dream. Robertson won the Walter Payton Award last season as the top player in the Football Championship Subdivision. A major reason Villanova is ranked fourth nationally in FCS this preseason is Robertson. It's not hard to project his skills into a winning QB in the Southeastern Conference or the Big Ten. Once you do that, the leap to the NFL doesn't seem so far-fetched.

Among Villanova's offensive greats, the 6-foot-1 fifth-year senior has to be in the pantheon with the likes of Brian Westbrook and Brian Finneran and Matt Szczur. Robertson already has Villanova's career record for total offense with 10,273 yards.

With every move, Robertson keeps showing off his decision making. Last season, it obviously wasn't easy to stand on the sidelines during Villanova's national quarterfinal. Robertson could have kept quiet about concussion symptoms.

"I've played with a broken hand, a torn labrum," Robertson said. "That stuff doesn't bother me. But something with the head, you should never mess with it. It's not a hamstring."

Imagine if Ohio State's QB or Oregon's QB had sat out a national FBS playoff game. It would have gotten massive publicity. That's what Robertson did one level down and the publicity remained local. That shouldn't lessen the applause.

"My thing was, I had a fuzzy feeling all day and a little ringing in my head," Robertson said. "It wasn't anything like I was off balance or really sick, but I knew that something was off. I've had a concussion before, two years back. I just knew that I didn't want to mess with it. It's my brain. This is a game, this isn't life and I want to be able to work and be intelligent about this."

He noted that Villanova had added a new test to the concussion protocol in which players have to take hits the day before the game. This, Robertson said, turned out to be crucial.

"I was getting hit by one of our safeties," Robertson said. "I went through practice and I was kind of fine, then I went and lay down that night and my head was ringing the whole night. I said, 'This isn't right.' "

As it turned out, Villanova lost the playoff game but his backup had a fine game.

"If I had gone out there and been a little hesitant, I probably wouldn't have played as well as he did," Robertson said, not second-guessing his decision.

Robertson also looked at the big picture when he decided about his internship. Originally, he had signed up for a campus interview, just figuring it was a good networking opportunity. Then a Swiss financial-services company invited the economics major to New York for an interview. Then came the internship offer. He rotated between desks, from program trading and index research to cash sales and trading to institutional sales. A job offer came last week.

"They said, 'We want you to try for the NFL,' " Robertson said. "I think it starts in August. I would have to figure out if I'm on a team by then. I think I would have a good idea."

Since just about all of his teammates spent the summer on campus, give Robertson's coaches credit for signing off on the internship, realizing what this guy already has given to the program.

"It was a real interesting group of people there," Robertson said of his park throwing sessions, which didn't attract much attention near the East River. "Everybody had their own thing going on."

His future is in the back of his mind, he said. Putting in the work, doing the best he can, if he does that, he figures it will all work itself out.

"I know there are some things I can't really control, like if I throw 35 touchdowns and three interceptions but I run the ball for 10 touchdowns and 1,000 yards, they'll say, 'He's a runner,' " Robertson said. "Things like that I can't control."

He is going to work harder at avoiding hits when it isn't worth it for two extra yards, but you're talking about a guy who has rushed for at least 100 yards in 15 games. You'll still see Robertson on the move. That can make you overlook the pinpoint passing and the rapid decision making. Check out the 2014 highlight reel on YouTube assembled by T.J. Landis, video coordinator for Villanova's team.

"At first I grabbed all the highlights, all of the touchdowns," Landis said. "We kind of wanted to get it to a good length. It was way too long."

The finished product goes 9 minutes, 33 seconds - 17 runs and 32 passes - with accompaniment from Kanye West's "The Good Life" and Flo Rida's "Going Down for Real."

"I think it started at about 16 minutes," Landis said.

The 2015 goal obviously is to keep the highlights coming. Villanova's high national ranking? Sounds good to Robertson. Put the target on his back.

"This is where you want to be, this is why you sign up to play for a good team," Robertson said. "I understand sometimes you want that underdog factor, but at the end of the day, you want to be the winner, someone who's on the top and wants to stay at the top."