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ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Michigan’s strong and steady pursuit of five-star running back Donovan Edwards paid off when, on early signing day, he chose to stay home and become a Wolverine instead of heading south to Georgia.
Considered a potential early impact player, Edwards has everything you want in a tailback. Before Ohio State gained its commitment from TreVeyon Henderson, the Buckeyes compared Edwards to J.K. Dobbins, seeing him as a freshman who could come in and impact the game immediately. In fact, that was how most schools saw him.
Now, Michigan has a few players, theoretically, ahead of him on the depth chart. Senior Hassan Haskins and sophomore Blake Corum already have the requisite experience and loads of talent to boot. While that still holds true, when sophomore offensive lineman Zak Zinter was asked how the running backs have been performing in spring ball, Edwards’ name that was the first out of his mouth even though he praised the entire group.
“We’ve got a great running backs room – it’s arguably one of the best running backs rooms in the country,” Zinter said. “Donovan – he’s an amazing player. He’s gonna have a very, very bright future ahead. All of the running backs – Hassan, Blake, Donovan. It’s pretty incredible the amount of talent we have in our running backs room right now.”
For now, Edwards is in competition with Corum and Haskins. For the former, he’s seeing a guy who still has to learn more of the playbook as well as the speed, but he can see him already starting to catch on as spring ball rolls on.
“Donovan came in right away and he got used to the game,” Corum said. “Obviously, college ball is a little faster than high school ball. But I see him coming in every day, working really hard, getting used to all the plays and stuff. I think he’s gonna be a really good player and I like what I see from him so far.”
Perhaps the biggest compliment Edwards received on Thursday came from one of the players tasked with defending him, fifth-year senior linebacker Josh Ross.
While Edwards is quite versatile and has numerous tricks up his sleeve, skill-wise, and team captain points to his innate talent as being one of the things that sets him apart.
“Speed. Speed, speed, speed,” Ross said. “That dude is flying. He’s so fast. Young guy, still learning, still getting better. But he can fly. I’ll say that. He definitely can fly.”
Nonetheless, there’s a lot of time between now and the Sept. 4 season opener against Western Michigan. With that in mind, what’s the most important thing Edwards can do to ensure he sees the field early as a true freshman?
Corum has some advice as a player who gained a significant amount of playing time in his first year.
“I would just say be yourself,” Corum said. “You know what type of player you are. Just do you. Go in there with confidence, don’t think too much. Just be a baller. The other side of the ball, they put their pants on just like we put our pants on. Just ball out, that’s the advice I would give him.”
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