Blake Corum gives two critical keys to winning Rose Bowl showdown with Alabama

PASADENA, CALIF. – The Michigan Wolverines hit the team-wide interview circuit on Saturday afternoon at the Rose Bowl during a media day event that was headlined by podium sessions with players and head coach Jim Harbaugh. For senior captain and running back Blake Corum, the showdown will be his first appearance in the College Football Playoff since the Orange Bowl in 2021.

Corum and the Michigan players have raved about the team’s revamped practice schedule, which has included less physicality and more mental work. With the weeks of game prep finally entering their twilight stages, Corum believes that the team will be ready to roll.

“The last couple of years we’ve been hitting a lot,” Corum said. “We still hit this camp, but we’ve also taken care of our bodies. We’ve been banging [shoulder pads] all year. We don’t need to bang too much, we’ll bang on Monday. But we’ve had a great, we’ve had a great December camp and we’ll be ready come Monday.”

Corum and Michigan are not only out to win the CFP semifinal in Pasadena but also to slay a narrative about the program’s performance in the postseason. The Wolverines have not won a bowl game since Harbaugh’s first season in Ann Arbor and have come up with nothing to show for their last two trips to the playoff.

Corum said there is no reason to sulk about it. Instead, lessons are applied.

“The way I look at it, you either learn from your losses or you don’t,” Corum said. “I think we’ve learned, through our struggles what went wrong, what we did wrong, and how can we get better from the past two years. I think we fixed some things up and now we have a little new recipe. I think we learned from those mistakes. 

“So you go into this game, you can’t make mistakes and you also can’t think about the past. You can only think about the present. I think we’re at right now with this team and what we’ve been through this year, I think it’s made us stronger mentally and physically.

“I think we’ll be ready for Monday and to finally just say that we got over the hump and we’re going to the national championship, but we can’t even think about the national championship right now. We just got to think about Alabama because they’re a great team coached by a great coach and that’s the only thing we can think about.”

Not many people expected Michigan to have a chance against Georgia in 2021, but the Wolverines were expected to be in Los Angeles last year if they beat TCU. Instead, a 51-45 loss followed that sent everyone back to Ann Arbor with a bitter taste in their mouths.

But no excuses were made. It was time to go back to work. And it resulted in what Corum sees as two major keys to Monday afternoon’s game.

“The way I look at it is the last two years, I just say the better team won,” Corum said. “I don’t make any excuses. The better team won. They made fewer mistakes. Georgia was a great team. TCU was a great team. They beat us. So I say we learn from our mistakes, and going into this game, one thing we have to do – well two things – we have to start fast, and we have to execute at a high level with minimal mistakes.

“I think those are two things that we’ve been working on and that we’ll do come Monday, but we just learn from our past. We’ve already done things, this camp, I call it, that we didn’t do the last couple of years, and I think it’s benefiting the team.

“I’m excited for Monday. we don’t really think about the past, only we stand where our feet are. We’ll be ready for Monday.”

Michigan and Alabama’s showdown in Pasadena kicks off at 5:10 p.m. ET on Jan. 1 from the Rose Bowl. As of Saturday afternoon, the Wolverines are a two-point favorite over the Crimson Tide. The winner heads to Houston on Jan. 8 for the national title game against either Texas or Washington.