The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com 
Wednesday, October 19, 2022 — 11 

Corum, Edwards show full capabilities in 
dominant performance against Penn State

JARED GREENSPAN
Managing Sports Editor

After Penn State allowed a 
stunning 418 rushing yards in a 
41-17 loss to the Michigan foot-
ball team, a number of defensive 
standouts admitted that the Nit-
tany Lions needed to be better. 
That much was evident to anyone 
who watched Penn State’s fifth-
ranked rushing defense — one of 
its core strengths — morph into a 
fatal flaw. 
Yet, amid the somber scene, 
linebacker Curtis Jacobs still 
found a reason to smile. 
Jacobs had just been asked 
about someone he considers one of 
his “dearest friends” — junior run-
ning back Blake Corum. 
“I’ve seen the same thing from 
him since sixth grade,” Jacobs 
said. 
Jacobs 
and 
Corum 
played 
together on Team Maryland in 
the FBU eighth grade circuit. 
They went on to play at competing 
high schools: Corum at St. Fran-
ces Academy and Jacobs for the 
McDonogh School. 
“In our FBU Tournament, I 
saw some flashes,” Jacobs remem-
bered. “But when I saw him at St. 
Frances, that’s when I knew he 
was gonna be one of the best backs 
in the country. He’s lightning in a 
bottle.” 
Saturday, Corum and sopho-
more 
running 
back 
Donovan 
Edwards combined to decimate 
Jacobs and Penn State’s defense. 
Corum once again affirmed his 
presence as one of the nation’s top 
running backs, tallying 166 rush-
ing yards and two touchdowns on 
28 carries. Edwards, meanwhile, 
ran for a career-best 173 yards and 
found the endzone twice, too. 
There is no more speculation 
surrounding Corum’s ability to 
evolve into a power, short-yardage 
back who can fill the void left by 
Hassan Haskins. Gone, too, are con-
cerns over Corum’s ability to handle 
a taxing, demanding workload. 
These days, it seems like the 
only question pertaining to Corum 

is if the opposing defense will ever 
be able to stop him.
“Everything 
that 
y’all 
see 
in games, we see in practice,” 
senior edge rusher Mike Mor-
ris said. “There are some plays 
where I have to cover (Corum and 
Edwards) on downs and it’s like, I 
just look to the coaches like, ‘Why 
are we calling this play?’ ”
Penn State, on paper, seemed 
poised to test Michigan’s rushing 
attack. Entering the day, it had 
allowed just 79.6 rushing yards 
per game and a mere 398 rushing 
yards on the season. 
The Wolverines eclipsed that 
figure with time to spare in the 
fourth quarter. 
Penn State players attributed 
the performance to a number of 
reasons. Most of them blamed a 
lack of execution in their individ-
ual assignments. Some stressed a 
need to be more physical. Others 
cited schematic issues. 
One constant emerged: Heading 
into the game, each player felt pre-
pared for what was coming. 
“We knew what we were get-
ting into,” linebacker Jonathan 
Sutherland said. “We knew what 
kind of game it was gonna be.” 
Nothing could prepare them for 
the dominance that would ensue. 
In the first half, Michigan 
racked up 168 rushing yards, 
marching the ball methodically 
down the field. 
“Of course you’re not gonna feel 
good about it,” linebacker Kody 
King said. “But it’s just a next play 
mentality: next play, next play, 
next play.” 
And yet, so often, each play 
yielded the same result. In the sec-
ond half, the Wolverines’ rushing 
game evolved from dominant to 
lethal. A sequence of back-to-back 
runs eventually swung the game in 
their favor for good. 
On a first and 10 from the 
Michigan 33-yard line, Edwards 
bounced around the edge, elicit-
ing an initial thunder of cheers. 
Then, he cut back inside and juked 
cornerback Ji’Ayir Brown to the 
turf, taking it 67 yards to the house 
while the crowd crescendoed. 

“Knowing what he can do 
with the ball in his hands, with 
his speed, I knew it was gonna be 
a big gain,” sophomore quarter-
back J.J. McCarthy said. “That’s 
just the special player he is.” 
On the next offensive play, 
the Wolverines lined up on their 
own 39-yard line. This time, 
Corum earned the carry. He 
burst through the middle and 
left everyone else behind, sprint-
ing 61 yards for his second score 
of the day. 
Morris remembered being on 
the sideline, having just taken his 
helmet off. Before he could even 
ask for water, Corum was in the 
clear. 
“I’m happy for him but I was 
like, ‘Gotta let us get a break a 
little bit’,” Morris laughed. 
Corum and Edwards didn’t 
give either defense a break. Mor-
ris may have had to retake the 
field, but Jacobs had to worry 
about bringing Corum to the 
ground. And yes, it’s as difficult 
as it seems.
“He has a really strong lower 
base,” Jacobs noted. “He works 
on that. He really works on 
balance and being able to run 
downhill and that’s big. Being a 
running back in the Big Ten, you 
have to be able to run downhill.” 
Saturday’s game, in a way, 
highlighted 
everything 
that 
Corum 
and 
Edwards 
have 
worked on. Corum put on 12 
pounds in the offseason with 
the idea of adding a little more 
power to his game while also 
retaining his trademark speed. 
Edwards, meanwhile, has bided 
his time since arriving as a five-
star recruit, confident a breakout 
of this sort would happen. 
“I feel like I’ve been prone for 
a game like this for a while now,” 
Edwards said. “I just had to sit 
back and wait my turn and show 
the world what I’m capable of 
being able to do.” 
The duo did just that Satur-
day. And if the fifth-ranked run 
defense can’t even slow them 
down, well, who else stands a 
chance? 

Sports

FOOTBALL

Josh Taubman: With statement win, Michigan reinforces its own narrative

At halftime, No. 
10 Penn State was 
taking the fight to 
the No. 5 Michigan 
football team. Lit-
erally. 
Things 
got 
chippy in the tun-
nel, 
with 
both 
teams shoving and 
engaging in the 
skirmish. What had transpired on 
the field in the previous 30 minutes 
didn’t fit that narrative. The Wol-
verines handled the Nittany Lions 
for the most part, outgaining them 
heavily in yardage and, astonish-
ingly, holding them to just one first 
down despite only leading 16-14. 
But standing in the tunnel, Penn 
State — whether warranted or not — 
was confident. 
The 
Wolverines, 
meanwhile, 
were simply unbothered. 
“They didn’t talk on the field,” 
senior defensive end Mike Morris 
said. “So they wanted to talk at half-
time because they got lucky.”
That attitude, the nonchalance 
with which Michigan treated the 
Nittany Lions at halftime, was 
exemplified by its dominance on 
the field. 

The narratives surrounding the 
Wolverines entering their Top-10 
matchup were pertinent: Could they 
move the ball against Penn State’s 
top-five ranked run defense? What 
would the defense that had strug-
gled against lesser Big Ten competi-
tion look like? And, of course, how 
would Michigan handle its first 
“real” test?
The Wolverines passed with fly-
ing colors.
They throttled Penn State from 
the opening kickoff to the final 
whistle. They marched right over 
the Nittany Lions’ run defense to 
the tune of 418 rushing yards, they 
stymied Penn State’s pair of talent-
ed running backs to 35 yards com-
bined and they never punted. 
The game was close in the first 
half because Michigan found itself 
settling for field goals instead of 
touchdowns. It was in a battle not 
with its opponent, but its own inept-
itude. The Wolverines looked at the 
first half and didn’t see themselves 
in a dogfight. 
In their eyes, they just weren’t 
playing to their standard. 
“We knew that we beat our-
selves,” graduate center Olusegun 
Oluwatimi said. “… So going into the 

locker room at halftime. Our spirits 
were up, we were ready to go back 
out … We felt like we were dominat-
ing on both sides of the ball and even 
in special teams, so we just (had) to 
keep doing us.”
Even with a 6-0 start, college 
football pundits criticized Michigan 
at every turn. Its weak non-confer-
ence schedule meant nothing could 
be gleaned from its blowout wins. 

Next, Maryland was able to move 
the ball against the Wolverines, 
raising further red flags. Then, they 
didn’t play four dominant quarters 
against Iowa or Indiana. More and 
more, questions swirled about their 
defense and whether a better oppo-
nent could exploit them. 
Penn State was supposed to be 
the better opponent. And Michigan, 
instead, looked the most dominant 

it had in conference play all season. 
 
“Take away three plays and the 
score is 41 to 3,” Morris said. “So we 
were not really worried about it.”
The Wolverines entered this 
game looking for respect. Despite all 
they accomplished last year, they’re 
still viewed as a team that’s begging 
for a seat at the big kids’ table.
But a resounding win in a top-10 
matchup proves Michigan should 

LILA TURNER/Daily

have its spot firmly anchored in the 
college football’s hierarchy. Michi-
gan coach Jim Harbaugh went as 
far to call it a “statement game.” 
There’s a laser focus to this year’s 
iteration of the Wolverines. The 
breaks in the game were going Penn 
State’s way — and it didn’t matter. 
They possess a confidence, built 
from the fact that they’ve seen what 
they can accomplish and have the 
belief that they can do it again. 
Up until kickoff, it was unclear 
how Michigan would look against 
the Nittany Lions. But, as it moved 
the ball at will and seized control of 
the game in the second half, those 
narratives quickly shifted — shifted 
to a point where going 11-0 enter-
ing the matchup in Columbus looks 
realistic.
That’s a narrative that wasn’t 
floated with much confidence out-
side of Ann Arbor before Saturday. 
But inside the Wolverines’ locker 
room, a new narrative about what 
they can accomplish this season has 
already been written. 
Last year, the narrative was 
about resetting expectations. 
This year, the expectation is to 
win, and Penn State was simply the 
first measuring stick.

Against Penn State, Michigan dominated 
the line of scrimmage

SPENCER RAINES
Daily Sports Editor

Football games are won in the 
trenches — and that’s the way 
Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh 
and his fifth-ranked Wolverines 
like it.
Not 
only 
did 
Michigan’s 
offensive line maul No. 10 Penn 
State’s defensive front on its 
way to a 41-17 victory, but its 
defensive line tamed the Nit-
tany Lions’ offense. It was as 
thorough a performance on both 
lines of scrimmage as a team can 
have, and the Wolverines did it 
all against a top-10 team.
That much was evident to 
everyone in the Big House on 
Saturday, 
fans, 
players 
and 
coaches alike. After the game, 
sophomore 
quarterback 
J.J. 
McCarthy noted that.
Asked at what point in the 
game he knew his team would 
control the line of scrimmage, 
McCarthy answered like some-
one who has the utmost confi-
dence in his offensive line.
“(We knew) from the jump, 
from the first drive,” McCar-
thy said. “I mean, just the way 
they were moving them off the 
ball. … And just the way these 
guys were running the ball right 
away and the way the offensive 
line was blocking. I just knew 
it was going to be a dogfight 
until the end in the trenches 

and yeah, our guys pulled out in 
front.”
It really was clear from the 
very beginning that Michi-
gan’s lines were better. On the 
first drive, the Wolverines ran 
it down Penn State’s throat, 
always on schedule, and mov-
ing the sticks with ease. To 
add to that, on Michigan’s very 
first defensive possession, it 
forced a three-and-out, doing so 
emphatically with a tackle for 
loss on third and one.
That’s how things went for 
both the offensive and defen-
sive lines for most of the game. 
The offense pounded the ball 
to great success time and time 
again. And the defensive line 
stymied the Nittany Lions’ tal-
ented freshman running back 
duo of Nicholas Singleton and 
Kaytron Allen to the point 
where their offense was com-
pletely one-dimensional.
Outside of a 62-yard run on 
a read option from Penn State 
quarterback Sean Clifford, the 
Nittany Lions’ rushing attack 
repeatedly ran into a wall at 
the line of scrimmage. Single-
ton and Allen combined for just 
35 yards on 12 attempts — their 
worst mark of the season.
It was apparent that the Wol-
verines were the more physical 
team on both sides of the ball 
early on, and that only grew 
more obvious as the game pro-
gressed. 

“I felt like we played domi-
nant on both sides of the ball 
with our fronts,” graduate 
center Olusegun Oluwatimi 
said. “We stopped their run 
game and obviously we had a 
big game on the ground. So it 
was just a dominant perfor-
mance.”
As Oluwatimi spoke, he 
donned a pair of shades and 
a smirk fitting of the accom-
plishment. He exuded the type 
of confidence you’d expect to 
see from a quarterback, a wide 
receiver, a running back, or 
realistically, any player other 
than a lineman.
But that’s what the Wol-
verines are: A program that 
prides 
itself 
on 
physical, 
smash-mouth football. A pro-
gram that elevates linemen — 
offensive and defensive — to 
the status of a skill position, 
one of the utmost importance.
Even McCarthy shares that 
belief.
“With 
any 
successful 
offense — you could go to any 
program in the country — you 
have to have a dominant run 
game, you have to,” McCarthy 
said. “You don’t see any air 
raid offense winning national 
championships. 
It’s 
where 
it’s done, in the trenches, and 
that’s where the battle is won.”
Saturday, that was certainly 
the case. And that’s just how 
Michigan likes it.

FOOTBALL

FOOTBALL

JEREMY WEINE/Daily

JEREMY WEINE/Daily

JOSH 
TAUBMAN

