Blake Corum says he was 'in a deep hole' during recovery
Michigan football senior running back Blake Corum had plenty of hurdles to jump over in his road to recovery from knee surgery. None were tougher to get through than the mental hurdles, which are still a work in progress as he works his way back to the field.
Speaking to The 33rd Team on YouTube, Corum learned that there is a mental recovery that has to take place during the road back in addition to getting your body right.
“I was in a deep hole,” Corum said. “It wasn’t even the recovery part. The hardest part of this recovery was getting myself out of that hole. No one knew because I was still me. I was still smiling. Deep down inside, I knew it wasn’t me.”
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Corum is known as one of Michigan’s workout warriors and one of the toughest players on the team. But it was tough at first to get back into a routine after resting his knee, which underwent a procedure for a torn meniscus and sprained MCL in December.
It was not until he was given the proper perspective that he felt like his old self again.
“I’m the type of guy that you have to kick out of the weight room,” he said. “I didn’t even want to be in the weight room. I wanted to eat McDonald’s. I didn’t want to eat rice and chicken. I wasn’t me, and the only one that could have got myself out of that was me.
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“It took a while. I’d go to the weight room one day and then not come in for the next four days. I didn’t want to do anything. Then I realized, why am I feeling bad for myself? I’m blessed. People would die to be in my position. … That’s when it clicked.”
Most injury experts projected a sixth-month recovery for Corum, which puts him in line for summer workouts and to be full-go for Michigan’s fall camp. We spoke to injury analyst Dr. Jess Flynn earlier this offseason, where she said she would not expect any limitations for Corum moving forward.
“When there’s an injury to [the meniscus] that’s when you start to talk about things like arthritis, and that’s when you think about like professional athletes who, at least in the NBA, they talk about load management,” Dr. Flynn said in a chat with The Wolverine in January. “His knee is young. Hopefully, there’s not a lot of damage. And it’s something that they can just progress him back slowly [from]. But then going forward, they won’t have to worry about any kind of limit time limit on him.”
So does Michigan need to dial back his workload in 2023?
“As long as the knee looks healthy and he’s able to make a full recovery, this is an athlete who obviously wants to take his game to the NFL,” Flynn said. “He was about to be in a really, really tough running back class and a really talented running back class. So it’s going to be hard to hold him back, quite frankly. But, [I wouldn’t be] running him into the ground if he’s having pain in that knee or having trouble working back in. I do think that limiting him somewhat and not just being run-heavy specifically with him every game for a whole season might be smart for his future.”
Corum rushed for 1,457 yards and 18 touchdowns in 11 games at Michigan last season.
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