The Two-RB 'Problem': How Michigan can optimize Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards in 2023
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This piece is a part of the 2023 Hail To The Victors Season Preview Magazine from MGoBlog. Like last season, I got the green light to share this with premium subscribers of this newsletter. I’m grateful to be able to cross-publish this, and highly encourage you to sign up for the preview magazine if you haven’t done so already. The pre-sale for the physical printed edition has already passed, but you can get the digital version of the magazine at this link, and it includes more than a handful of additional long-form preview pieces like this.
My piece explores the two-RB “problem” that Michigan faces this fall, with both Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards coming back to Ann Arbor. This will be slightly different than what appears in the magazine, because that version is trimmed down a bit for space purposes — as you know by now, I have a tendency to write long. But the version I’m sharing here is my pre-cut version. Enjoy!
When a one-armed Donovan Edwards trotted into the end zone for a pair of highlight-reel touchdowns late in the 2022 edition of The Game, it set off a number of notable byproducts. In the moment, it quieted a raucous enemy crowd at The Horseshoe and clinched a second straight rivalry win for Michigan, guaranteeing a return trip to Indianapolis for a once-elusive Big Ten Championship Game appearance. It gave Wolverine fans hope that Blake Corum’s freak injury just seven days earlier wouldn’t be a season-killer after all. And it abruptly marked the end of Edwards being “next man up” in the Wolverine backfield. Michigan’s running back of the future had become its running back of the present — at a time when it was needed the most.
Once Michigan’s quest to win it all came to a disappointing end a handful of weeks later, a still-injured Corum made the decision to return to Ann Arbor for one more season. Now Edwards’ dynamic close to the 2022 season would have a ripple effect beyond that season, giving the Michigan coaching staff a situation that’s — depending on your perspective — either a nice problem to have, something difficult to navigate, or more likely, a combination of both. The Wolverine offense now has an additional bona fide weapon heading into a 2023 campaign that can and should be the program’s best shot at winning a National Championship in a quarter century. But it also has another hungry mouth to feed, and still only one ball to provide nourishment to an increasingly gifted array of offensive weapons.
Does Michigan have the best 1-2 backfield punch in the country? What’s the key to navigating this challenge? What can Michigan learn from past misuses of unique talents? Let’s take a look.
