Michigan football countdown to kickoff: 82 days until 2022 season
There’s much anticipation heading into the Michigan Wolverines football season, and TheWolverine.com is counting down the days until the Sept. 3 opener against Colorado State. We’ll discuss the current Michigan events, upcoming season and/or take a look at a significant number that correlates with how many days remain until kickoff, whether it be a player’s jersey number, a year, a date, a score, etc.
Former Michigan wide receiver Amara Darboh (2012-16) — No. 82 — is one of the most underappreciated players of the last decade. He was also one of the best. We named him an honorable mention at wide receiver in our all-decade team put out in 2020 in The Wolverine magazine, behind Roy Roundtree and Jeremy Gallon.
Darboh’s career got off to a slow start. He redshirted in 2012, then suffered a season-ending foot injury just before the 2013 campaign. He waited his turn and got healthy, and was an impact player in 2014, finishing second on the Michigan team behind Devin Funchess with 36 catches, 476 receiving yards and two touchdowns.
He excelled to an even higher degree once head coach Jim Harbaugh arrived to Michigan. In 2015, Harbaugh’s first season, Darboh registered 58 catches (led the team) for 727 yards (second) and five touchdowns (second). The latter two marks trailed only Jehu Chesson.
That’s also the year in which he made an Odell Beckham Jr.-like one-handed catch along the sideline against BYU.
Darboh took another step forward in 2016, becoming quarterback Wilton Speight‘s top target. He led the Michigan squad in all three major receiving statistical categories — catches (57), yards (862) and touchdowns (seven).
The highlight of his season was the game-winning catch against Wisconsin — a 46-yard grab in the fourth quarter that ultimately put Michigan ahead, 14-7, and for good.
“It was perfect,” Darboh said postgame. “It was one-on-one coverage, the safety was in the middle. I got inside my guy, and Wilton threw a perfect ball and I just had to run underneath it.”
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He helped Michigan — which was inches away from a Big Ten title game appearance — post a 10-3 record and reach the Orange Bowl, Harbaugh’s first New Year’s Six game of his U-M tenure.
Darboh was drafted by the Seattle Seahawks in the third round of the 2017 NFL Draft. He appeared in 16 games as a rookie, making eight catches for 71 yards, but has yet to play in an NFL game since. He’s currently a free agent.
Amara Darboh’s incredible journey
Darboh was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone in 1994. Both of his parents were killed during a horrific civil war while he was two years old, and he was placed in an orphanage. One of 13 siblings, Darboh and his family moved to Gambia and Senegal, before in 2001 migrating to Des Moines, Iowa, in the United States. He earned U.S. citizenship during Michigan’s 2015 season.
“Grateful, just grateful,” Darboh, then a 21-year-old, told the Detroit Free Press in 2015 of receiving U.S. citizenship. “Grateful for where I came from. How grateful my family was.”
Michigan football countdown to kickoff
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