11 days until Michigan football: Blake Corum becoming a dual-threat back, too
There’s much anticipation heading into the Michigan Wolverines football season, and TheWolverine.com is counting down the days until the Sept. 2 opener against East Carolina. We’ll discuss current Michigan events, the 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.
Michigan Wolverines football senior running back Blake Corum rushed 20.6 times per game last season, and that included instances where he wasn’t healthy for the entire game. When healthy against Big Ten competition, Corum averaged 29 rushes per contest. That’s a heavy workload — no question. But where Corum didn’t have a huge role was as a receiver in the pass game, with only 11 catches on the season. All 11 came within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage, including 5 behind the line.
That came one season after Corum caught 24 passes — more than double the amount of receptions than the year prior, in 122 less offensive snaps.
Corum’s role was different in 2022 compared to 2021. Last year, he served as Michigan’s bell-cow back, having to carry the ball in every situation — first, second, third down, short-yardage, goal line, etc. He also excelled in pass protection (perhaps one of the reasons why they didn’t ask him to go out on more routes).
Now, though, there’s hope junior Donovan Edwards has progressed enough to carry more of that load. On top of that, Corum is looking to expand his game. He doesn’t want to just come back the same player after his season-ending knee injury suffered late last November, he wants to be even better.
According to former Michigan tight end Jake Butt, now an analyst for the Big Ten Network, Corum is doing that, including as a receiver.
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“One thing Michigan fans are going to be excited to hear, and fans of other teams across the league might be a little bit fearful — he looks healthy,” Butt said on BTN’s training camp tour stop at Michigan. “I’ve experienced a number of knee surgeries. It’s the unplanned cuts where you have to react, and he looked confident doing it both ways.
“One thing I also noticed — catching the ball out of the backfield, adding that extra element. You want to get a little bit better every single year. That was typically Donovan last year, but maybe you have the option now to keep them both on the field. Blake running routes out of the backfield, looked even crisper, caught the ball smooth today. So similar to J.J., their leaders are taking steps forward.”
If that’s the case, Michigan won’t have as much of a ‘tell’ in terms of what it’s going to do when certain personnel is in the game. And that could help take an offense that averaged 40.4 points per game, the most by a Wolverine team since 1904, to another level.
Michigan football countdown to kickoff
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