61 days until Michigan football: Blake Corum as a short-yardage back and home-run threat
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.
One of the big question marks coming into Michigan’s 2022 season was whether or not the Wolverines had a capable “short-yardage back.”
Once the Wolverines were a few games into the season, that wasn’t much of a question any longer. 5-foot-10 senior Blake Corum, described as a “scat-back” in the past had bulked up to 210 pounds and proved there’s more than one way to move the chains in short-yardage situations. He used his combination of his elite quickness and his increased strength to make it tough for defenders to stop him short of the marker.
According to our research earlier this offseason, Corum either gained a first down or scored a touchdown on 76.8-percent of his carries in situations where Michigan had 3 or fewer yards to go. Some of those were on second or third down, and if he didn’t pick up the first, more times than not Corum was able to move the chains the next play anyway.
Corum’s 96 first-down runs ranked second in the nation behind only Minnesota’s Mohamed Ibrahim, who had 110 but carried the ball 320 times to Corum’s 247.
It was quite apparent that Corum sacrificed some speed so that he could be the short-yardage back Michigan needed. His longest run of the 2022 season was 61 yards (for a touchdown against Penn State), and that was his lone rush of more than 50 yards.
For comparison, Corum had rushes of 67 (twice), 55 and 51 in 141 carries in 2022, despite playing while still recovering from an ankle sprain late in the Michigan season.
In 2021, Corum’s “breakaway percentage” (a stat by PFF that tracks the amount of yards a ball-carrier registered on runs of 15-plus yards) was 47 percent with 13 runs of 15-plus yards. In 2022, that number was 40.9 percent with 22 rushes of 15-plus yards.
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Being Michigan’s featured back in 2022 as opposed to a complement to Hassan Haskins in 2021 certainly plays a factor, and Corum still has big-play ability, but it is clear that he has decreased a bit as a home-run threat.
Corum said this spring that he gained 10 pounds this offseason, and he looks considerably bigger than he did even last fall. In an exclusive conversation with TheWolverine.com earlier this offseason, Michigan strength and conditioning coach Ben Herbert said that he’s not worried about Corum’s weight and that it will work itself out once he’s back full-go in workouts and practices.
“Once his movement capabilities are back to where they need to be, then it’s going to take care of itself,” Herbert said in May (Corum has since gotten even more healthy, recovering from a season-ending knee injury suffered last November). “Wherever that number is, I look at the traits. The number, whether it’s 220 or 209 or somewhere in between, making sure that he is doing the things that he’s capable of doing and that he needs to do.”
Michigan football countdown to kickoff
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