Michigan football countdown to kickoff: 18 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 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 football has just 18 days until the 2022 season, giving us reason to look at a couple No. 18s for U-M. First, wide receiver Amani Toomer, then current freshman tight end Colston Loveland.
Amani Toomer
Toomer was one of Michigan’s top wide receivers of the mid-1990s. He played at U-M from 1992-95, registering a total of 2,657 receiving yards and 16 touchdowns.
Toomer’s career statistics are interesting to examine. It was a slow, but nice, ramp up from his freshman to junior seasons, with 238 yards and one score his first year and 565 yards and four touchdowns his second campaign, before exploding as a junior. He then took a step back as a senior.
The Michigan receiver went off for 1,096 yards and six touchdowns as a junior in 1994 — averaging 20.3 yards per catch. His yard mark stands as the seventh most by a Michigan player in a single season. At the time, though, he broke the record for most yards in a season. He was a finalist for the Biletnikoff Award and earned first-team All-Big Ten honors.
Despite playing an identical amount of games as the three prior seasons (12), Toomer’s receiving yards production took a step back as a Michigan senior. He caught 44 passes for 758 yards and seven scores (a career-high), and was the focal point of the offense, drawing plenty of attention from opposing defenses. Toomer was named second-team All-Big Ten.
He’s now fourth in Michigan history with 2,657 receiving yards.
Toomer was taken early in the second round (No. 34 overall pick) of the 1996 NFL draft by the New York Giants, with which he played from 1996-2008. He won Super Bowl XLII with the franchise and is in the Giants Ring Of Honor. In the Super Bowl, a 17-14 win over the New England Patriots, the former Michigan star led his team with six receptions for 84 yards.
For his professional career, he notched 668 receptions, 9,497 receiving yards (most by any Giants receiver) and 54 touchdowns. He also returned three kicks for touchdowns.
Colston Loveland
Loveland enrolled early at Michigan and made an impact in the spring game, catching a 31-yard pass from fellow tight end Erick All on a trick play. His athleticism was on display, something he showed the rest of the spring, leading his teammates and coaches to get excited about his future. That talk has continued into fall camp, and there’s a chance he gets his opportunity in games this season.
Michigan tight ends coach Grant Newsome was asked about freshman tight end Marlin Klein, who didn’t enroll early and instead joined the team this summer, but also mentioned that Loveland is excelling.
“He’s going to be pretty good,” Newsome said of Klein. “Both of those freshman tight ends are going to be really good. They’ve both had really, really good camps, and I’m excited to see how they both continue to develop. Marlin and Colston have a lot of physical tools that are going to set them up to be really, really good players here.”
Loveland was ranked as the No. 268 overall player in the 2022 class, per the On3 Consensus.
Michigan football countdown to kickoff
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