Michigan RB Blake Corum: 'I'm good for' 40 carries, but 'whatever gets the job done'
Michigan Wolverines football senior running back Blake Corum averaged 29 carries per game against Big Ten opponents while fully healthy last season. A 5-foot-8, 213-pound workhorse, Corum had 30 rushes against Maryland and 33 versus Michigan State. He hit 25 carries on six occasions.
Corum suffered a season-ending knee injury against Illinois last November. While it wasn’t directly due to overuse, more carries leads to a greater chance of injury, just based on simple math.
Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh has said this offseason that he wants to spread the ball around more in 2023, which he believes will make the Wolverines’ offense more “dangerous.” Junior running back Donovan Edwards needs as many touches as Corum, Harbaugh said at Big Ten Media Days, and given how the former performed at the end of the 2022 campaign, particularly with a monster second half at Ohio State, scoring 2 long touchdowns, it’s fair to assume U-M will be better off putting the ball in his hands.
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Corum and Edwards have a great relationship, by all accounts. While Corum was a Heisman Trophy contender and Michigan’s MVP last season, he’s taking an unselfish attitude. Both have different skill sets — Edwards, for example, is a strong pass-catcher — and can be used in a multitude of ways.
“When you have diverse running backs, you can put them wherever you want to put them, put them in the best position so that the team can win,” Corum said.
“So it starts with [running backs coacn and run game coordinator] Coach [Mike] Hart — great running backs coach, great guy. We’ve learned so much from Coach Hart, it’s crazy. He’s just brought our running back room so close together that we can’t be pulled apart. So it starts with him.
“And then you have myself, you have Donovan — two guys who just push each other, not selfish at all, just want the best for each other. We try to sharpen each other on and off the field.
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“And then you have guys like [sophomore] CJ Stokes or [junior] Tavi Dunlap or [graduate] Leon Franklin, and then you got the freshman, Benjamin Hall, you got Cole Cabana. We’ve got some running backs. Running backs who just got here are trying to take everything in, maybe learn a little something here and there. And then you’ve got the seasoned veterans.”
When asked about workload, Corum shrugged it off, making it known that his first priority is doing what he can to help Michigan come out on top each week.
“Sixteen, 20, that’s fine with me,” Corum said of his carries, after a reporter suggested 16-20 per game. “Whatever gets the job done. If they need me to one game carry the ball 40 times, I’m good for it. I’m good for it, man. I know the work I put in. But if they want me to carry it 10 times, I can do something with 10.
“I know I have the guys in front of me that are going to pave the way for us running backs. Whatever the team needs me to do, I’m there for them, whether that be 10 carries, whether that be 40 carries. It doesn’t matter to me. I’m there to play the game that I love, and that’s what I love doing, man, going out there every Saturday.”
Corum rushed for 1,463 yards and 18 touchdowns last season, finishing seventh in Heisman Trophy voting. Edwards, meanwhile, totaled 991 yards and 7 touchdowns in 11 contests, adding 18 catches for 200 yards and a pair of scores.
