ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Michigan football wrapped up its spring on Saturday after the Maize team took down the Blue squad during the Wolverines’ annual spring game.
There were several key players that didn’t play on Saturday, two of which were Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards. There is an ongoing battle going on in Ann Arbor about which player will step up and take the No. 3 running back job.
It was Kalel Mullings (Blue) and Leon Franklin (Maize) who gained the starts for both teams. Maize couldn’t get much going on the ground, the team gained just 46 yards rushing, but Blue was really good running the ball on Saturday rushing for 180 yards. Blue received a ton of productivity from both Mullings and freshman Benjamin Hall.
Mike Hart coached Maize, and his team won, so after the game, he was the coach who did the talking during the press conference. He told the media he is more confident at this time this year than he was last year with the running back room. Hart believes the team is extremely deep and a lot of guys could get the job done.
“Yeah, I think we’re really deep,” said Hart. You know, definitely feel a lot better this time of year than I did last year. You know, we got a lot of depth, the guys are gonna compete and that’ll just gonna go into fall camp but definitely feel really good about running back from right now the depth that we have in the guys can play. Again, I think we could show up today and play a game right now with the guys we have. And that’s without Blake and Donovan. So those are two of the best players on the team, two of the best players in the country. So I think we’re in a really good situation. In the running back room.”
CJ Stokes, last season’s No. 3 running back for most of the season, didn’t play on Saturday. Mullings received the start and played well, but the star of the running back show was Hall. He averaged over seven yards a carry on Saturday, gained 96 yards and scored once on the ground. Coach Hart joked and said Hall should’ve scored more but between falling and tripping he only got one touchdown. He went on to say how mature the true freshman is and went on about his body frame.
“Well, I told him today he should of had two touchdowns but he fell twice,” said Hart. “He stepped out of bounds once and tripped on the other one, but I just think that his maturity is it’s pretty — it’s amazing. I mean you wouldn’t guess he’s 18 years old just turned 18 a few weeks ago. Yeah, it’s like he’s been here a long time. He works hard. He studies, he understands the offense. He’s just getting better and better every day. He’s just built like a grown man. I mean, he’s 225 pounds. And you know, his legs are huge. He runs hard. So excited about his future here.”
So who does Hall compare to? He has the size of a bowling ball but has cutting ability and speed to go along with it. The first person to come to Hart’s mind was Hassan Haskins. Haskins always had the ability to carry piles and gain more yardage than he probably should have — something we saw from Hall on Saturday. Coach Hart also brought up his former teammate, and five-star prospect, Kevin Grady.
“He’s Hassan like, he’s hard to tackle,” Hart said. “He’s hard to bring down. But his legs are just so thick. I mean, you look at him waist down. I mean, he’s, he’s a big guy. So you know, I would probably compare him to the guys we’ve had here to Hassan. Go back to Kevin Grady, if you want to back in the day. It’s how Grady was built that way back in 2005 2006 for those young reporters out there.”
Time will tell who primarily backs up Corum and Edwards this season, but if Saturday told anything — Hall will be right there.
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