Roberts blocked a field goal and picked up a sack, an interception and two passes defensed in his first college season, even earning Honorable Mention All-MIAA as a freshman. He’d build on that in his second and third seasons, logging 23 tackles-for-loss and 11 sacks before finding his senior season cancelled due to COVID-19.
“He finished his degree and had kind of contemplated going free agent [to the NFL] and was coming off of an abdominal injury, which he played through and really showed flashes of what he could do but didn’t really show what he could do,” said Wright. “I can remember walking with him out on the field and I just said, ‘Sam, you need to come back for one more.’ I said, if you put the type of tape I know you can put out there, you’re gonna go from being a free agent to a draftee, so I guess I was prophetic from that standpoint.”
Roberts did return in 2021 and had his best season yet serving as team captain and recording 6.5 sacks and 18.0 tackles-for-loss as he took…