Blake Corum: Michigan’s most valuable player, and leader

Bryan Fischer

College Football Writer

The College Football Playoff can often be an interesting exercise in branding.

From the buses players take to press conferences, to the logos on the headsets coaches wear, to the specific blades of grass in various parts of a stadium end zone, the CFP logo is nearly everywhere you look. As a result, with so much buttoned up in terms of presentation, it can sometimes be a bit harder for players to stand out anywhere but on the field.

That is partially by design, but can sometimes lead to a bit of dullness in the run-up to kickoff. Team buses — carrying rosters that have swelled well beyond 85 players — tend to release a generic mass of sameness dressed in team-issued gear when they pull up to the stadium.

Michigan tailback Blake Corum, however, has been hard to miss.

It has been the case for much of his time in the program during its recent run of dominance, and it has been the case before, during and after the Wolverines’ cathartic 27-20 overtime win over Alabama in the Rose Bowl semifinal.

Despite being the smallest scholarship player on the roster, generously listed at 5-foot-8, the senior earned many of the loudest cheers from the fan base as he jogged off the field amid thunderous applause and raised fists full of roses.

He was unmistakable during the game, too, a big-time playmaker despite being the focal point of Alabama’s defensive effort, whether it was hard runs between the tackles or showcasing his little-used pass-catching skills on a pair of key receptions out of the backfield.

But Corum’s most showstopping moment may have come hours before the sun set on the San Gabriel Mountains, though, pausing onlookers in their tracks pre-game when he got off the Michigan bus wearing a 1990s-era NFC Pro Bowl jersey. There was little question of which player he had chosen to represent, either, with Barry Sanders’ No. 20 unmistakable.

“He’s a legend, the best running back ever,” said Corum, proudly holding up Sanders’ jersey in his locker beneath the Rose Bowl after an 83-yard rushing effort against the Tide, his second score providing the final margin. “He’s someone I look up to.”

Unlike a good portion of his fan base, which hails from the region surrounding Ann Arbor and nearby metro Detroit, Corum is not a Lions fan. He also never saw Sanders live (or even live on television), having been born over a year after the legendary All-Pro formally retired from the NFL.

The DMV native who played prep football just outside Baltimore is quick to point out that he is just a Barry fan.

It makes sense of course. What Corum lacks in the Hall of Famer’s quickness in dancing in and out of traffic in the hole, he matches in height and sheer determination in the face of a stacked box. The young running back won’t win any awards for his 40-yard dash, but will still outrace opponents to the pylon just the same.

Wearing the jersey wasn’t done to grab attention away from the team on Monday, but rather highlight whose inspiration Corum was hoping to channel on the biggest game of his career.

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“I feel like he, in my eyes, is the most valuable player of our team. There’s so many of them that are right up at his caliber, but especially from an offensive perspective, I feel like he’s one of the guys that makes our offense go,” quarterback J.J. McCarthy noted, a day after watching Corum’s game-winning 17-yard scamper. “Just everything he’s been through, all the adversity that he’s been through, just from his upbringing to this past year, just everything about who he is and just his character, how he attacks every single day, it just rubs off on all of us.

“It’s just one of the most valuable players on our team — if not the most.”

Just a year ago at this time, Corum was the furthest thing from that. He was walking around at a different semifinal on crutches and putting on a brave face as he snapped photos with fans ahead of what turned out to be a disastrous Fiesta Bowl loss to TCU. He was in the early stages of recovery from a devastating knee injury, the meniscus in his left knee having been repaired not too far from the very spot in Pasadena where he would later prove to be a handful for Alabama’s swarming defense.

“We kept saying on the sidelines, a playmaker’s got to make a play,” said Corum, who had four touches on the eight-play touchdown drive in the fourth quarter that sent the Rose Bowl to overtime. “Sometimes all it takes is one play to get the team going again. Sixty minutes is a long game, so sometimes you have some droughts.”

Michigan is now a remarkable 31-0 when the tailback crosses the goal line, and he’s proven to be the engine behind an offense that has finished in the top 20 in scoring all three years he’s been the lead back. His contributions were particularly critical in the Wolverines’ big games on their march toward the Playoff, grinding out a season-high 145 yards against Penn State as part of 32 consecutive runs to close things out on the road — a bruising contest that left Corum doing postgame interviews with blood running down his face from a cut on his nose. He scored twice more against rival Ohio State in a six-point win at home to lock up the Big Ten East title, too.

Now, as Michigan prepares to face Washington in the national champions game on Monday in Houston, it’s clear that Corum has endeared himself to the program not just a good player between the lines, but one who sets an example for younger players outside of them.

Assistant coaches have raved at how the easy-going Corum has been while keeping the locker room pointed in the right direction amid such a turbulent campaign — one which has seen head coach Jim Harbaugh suspended twice, including for the fall’s sign-stealing saga involving analyst Connor Stalions.

Corum has also gathered donations as part of a local toy drive around Christmas and used part of his NIL money to purchase turkeys for those less fortunate in the area around campus. For all the negative headlines that have enveloped Michigan this season, the school’s all-time leading touchdown scorer has done his part to balance things out as best as a 23-year-old can.

“I just feel like that’s just a smart part of who he is, just being able to be not just a leader on the field but leader off the field,” added McCarthy. “Everything he did with the toy drive and the turkeys just speaks to the character that he is and just having the ability to give back and do it in such a big and profound way when you can keep it all for yourself and worry about buying yourself all the chains and all the cars and all the materialistic things, now Blake is thinking about giving it back to the people in need, and that just speaks to who he is and the culture that’s here at the University of Michigan.”

As Corum’s place in Michigan lore has grown throughout a run that occupies a special place in school history, so too, have the number of people who have been sporting a maize and blue No. 2 jersey. In a couple of years, there could be a slew of young players walking into their own big games with Corum’s name emblazoned on the back as a result of how central a role Corum had in returning the Wolverines to the top of college football.

It’s not often that one of the smallest players on the team can end up being one of its biggest stars, but such is the case for the tailback whose tough running has been central to the identity the Wolverines have not just embodied, but doubled down on, as they sit one win away from their ultimate goal.

Bryan Fischer is a college football writer for FOX Sports. He has been covering college athletics for nearly two decades at outlets such as NBC Sports, CBS Sports, Yahoo! Sports and NFL.com among others. Follow him on Twitter at @BryanDFischer.

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