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You can hear the gasps at Johnson Hagood Stadium when Christian Robertson takes a hit and goes flying through the air.
At 5-8 and 163 pounds, it doesn't take much to launch The Citadel slotback skyward.
"He gets hit and bounced around a lot, even in practice," said defensive tackle Quintin Turner. "But he just rolls with it and keeps going. We all have a lot of respect for him. He might be the smallest guy on our team, but he's got a lot of heart."
Robertson, a senior from Savannah, is in fact the Bulldogs' smallest player - even counting the kickers - and has to be one of the least likely looking players in college football.
Soft-spoken and bespectacled, Robertson is not often mistaken for a running back when away from the field. At The Citadel's ring ceremony last week, one woman asked Robertson if he was in a certain company.
"I told her, 'No ma'am, I'm a senior football player,' " Robertson said. "She just smiled and walked away. I get that a lot."
Robertson admits to weighing just 98 pounds when he was a freshman at Savannah Country Day School, and said he was often told he was too small for football.
"I tried playing soccer," he said. "But it just didn't give me the same feeling as football does."
So he lettered four years in football at Savannah Country Day, and as a senior receiver caught 31 passes for 600 yards and seven touchdowns. He also set the school record in the 400-meter dash.
You see, Robertson is small, but he's fast. He's been timed in 4.39 seconds
for the 40-yard dash, and that's what caught the eye of Bulldogs' coach Kevin Higgins when Robertson attended a summer camp at The Citadel.
"He impressed us as a hard worker with good quickness and agility," said Higgins, who himself was a tough, under-sized college football player. "We thought he'd be a great walk-on for the program, because he is so small."
Robertson put in his time on the scout team in 2007, playing receiver, running back and quarterback and earning the scout team offensive player of the year award.
He began seeing the field last year, playing in four games. And the move to the double-slot option this season, along with some injuries, has put Robertson on the field quite a bit.
He's rushed for 105 yards on 22 carries, averaging 4.8 yards per attempt, including a 54-yarder, the Bulldogs' second-longest run from scrimmage this season. He ranks third among The Citadel's slotbacks in rushing yards, behind Terrance Martin (136) and Van Dyke Jones (111).
"Christian is fast," Higgins said. "And we've been talking to him about learning how to use his speed. Sometimes out on the perimeter, he will cut the ball back instead of just getting to the sideline. I think once he understands that, it will help him even more. He is one of our few guys that, if you get the ball to him in space, he has a chance to go the distance."
A business major who is considering medical school, Robertson has been best buddies since knob year with Bulldogs lineman Lincoln Kling, one of the biggest players on the team at 6-6 and 291 pounds, prompting comparisons to the stars of the reality show "Rob & Big."
But through the death Kling's grandmother, the two found out last year they are actually related - "Lincoln's grandmother and my grandfather were first cousins," Robertson said.
So word to Citadel foes - if you mess with the Bulldogs' smallest player, you might have to deal with their biggest.
