The catch was, A.J. McCarron was the established star QB of Robinson’s team. He just was on the other side in practice drills, drills in which the quarterback’s jersey always is a different color so nobody gets confused and lays a glove on him.

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“My freshman year, when I got there, I wasn’t used to not hitting the quarterback,” Robinson said Friday at the NFL Scouting Combine. “So in practice I used to hit A.J. all the time, and he (Saban) would get mad: ‘Stay off the quarterback!’

“But I’ve got to hit the quarterback! If I don’t hit the quarterback in practice, how am I going hit him in the game? But I know you’re not supposed to do that. Just force of habit. I stopped doing it after my freshman year, but it was a habit.”

Robinson can hit all the quarterbacks he wants over the next several years, so long as it’s between whistles (and between the shoulders and waist, mind you).

He is a 6-4, 312-pound defensive lineman who was a consensus All-American for Alabama’s national championship team in 2015. We call him a defensive lineman generically because he is versatile enough to function as an end in a 3-4 alignment or a tackle in a 4-3. A native of Fort Worth, he is rated as a first-round pick, most likely toward the top 20.

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He said he sees himself more in the 3-4 defense but, “I mean I played it all at Alabama. I was able to move up and down the line. As much as we did that really helped me and helped teams get insight into what I can do.”

In his final season, as a junior, Robinson had 3½ sacks and acknowledges he can improve his pass rush by getting off blocks more quickly, “stop patty-caking the offensive lineman and just get off the blocks and going to make the play.”

But it is the use of his hands along the line that is considered to be one of his greatest skills. The ability to forcefully use one’s hands to cope with the strength and tenacity of offensive linemen — and the advantage they have in that they know where the play is going — is essential for defensive linemen.

Robinson credited defensive line coach Bo Davis with teaching that technique, albeit in — shall we say — socially unacceptable terms.

“He tells us like, ‘Try to choke someone. Anybody that ever just made you mad, just try to choke ‘em. Choke ‘em to death,’ “ Robinson said. “So I start squeezing, grabbing pads, just start squeezing, shacking the fillings out of ‘em. So that’s what we try to do every time we get our hands inside and grab ‘em.”

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It is curious, but not incongruous, to hear Robinson also say the greatest lesson he learned during his time at Alabama was “discipline.” Playing for Saban, he said, helped him to understand what was necessary to reach his potential.

“You know exactly what you have to do playing for Coach Saban,” Robinson said. “It really helped us to be more disciplined … to go out every day and give 100 percent no matter what it is, what we were doing, on and off the field.

“It prepares you for being a competitor. Because everything you do in life, getting a job, is a competition. You’re trying to get a job over someone; you’re trying to get hired. Pretty much everything you do, his system works on everything.”