Who plays Pastor Rob on Young Sheldon?

The whole Cooper clan officially knows what changes are coming for their family. In last night’s Young Sheldon episode, “Uncle Sheldon and a Hormonal Firecracker,” Mary and George told the twins their older brother is going to be a dad.

While everyone promises to keep the news on the down low, each member of the Cooper family ended up sharing the news with someone. Sheldon told Professor Linkletter, Missy shared with her friend at school, George told his co-worker and friend Wayne, and Mary looked to her co-worker and friend Pastor Rob for some guidance.

Rob is the youth pastor of the church’s Sunday School, who was hired by Mary and Pastor Jeff Difford in season 5, episode 2. He’s been making some small appearances throughout the season, but did the show hint at something more to come between Mary and Rob in Thursday’s episode? And who even is the actor behind the character?

Pastor Rob on Young Sheldon

Young Sheldon‘s Pastor Rob is played by Dan Byrd. The 36-year-old actor began his career at a young age, and his film debut was in the 1999 movie, The First of May. He gained his breakout role in the TNT miniseries Salem’s Lot, playing schoolboy Mark Petrie.

He went on to star opposite Hilary Duff in A Cinderella Story (one of my favorite movies!), co-starred alongside Emma Stone in Easy A, and played Travis Cobb on Cougar Town. Travis was the son of Courtney Cox’s character.

I love Young Sheldon, but I honestly don’t know where the show is going with Mary and Rob’s storyline. Back in episode 6 we saw that Mary has a bit of a crush on the pastor and he even features in a fantasy dream she has. I don’t think anything is necessarily going to happen between them, but it seems likely Mary is going to continue leaning on him for support which is probably going to cause even more tension between Mary and George.

As the Coopers try to figure out what they’re going to do about Georgie’s situation, Mary is worried about what her church community is going to think. Her husband tells her she shouldn’t care about what other people think, but she doesn’t take him seriously. When she consults Rob however, he basically tells her the exact same thing which she finds to be helpful.

Obviously, George doesn’t like that and hints that she’s been talking to Rob a lot lately. A breaking point is coming for this couple, and it’s little things like this that will eventually build up to that.

I mean this family is kind of a mess right now. 17-year-old Georgie is having a baby with his former 29-year-old girlfriend Mandy (she didn’t learn about his true age until after she found out she’s pregnant). Mary is doing the opposite and has a crush on the youth pastor who’s Mandy’s age. And, we keep getting hints at the potential cheating storyline between George and Brenda. I am so nervous for the season 5 finale!

Young Sheldon airs on Thursdays. You can watch it on CBS at 8 p.m. ET/PT.