DETROIT — If you have a certain skill set and are more than capable, you’d certainly be ready to showcase those capabilities. But what if there are a few people ahead of you who have already proven, at a high level, that they’re just as capable?
That means you wait. And if you are Michigan football running back CJ Stokes, you have to do it patiently. Sometimes that’s easier said than done.
However, Stokes recognizes the talent ahead of him on the depth chart, Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards, are getting the attention they deserve. They bided their time and now they’re able to show what they can do. For Stokes, that’s an important lesson he had to learn once he arrived in Ann Arbor, because — of course — he wanted to be able to prove his worth.
The way he sees it, they’re a team, and one day his name will be called, and his preparation will allow him to make good on his ability at precisely that moment.
“As far as that goes, you just got to be yourself,” Stokes told Wolverines Wire. “I don’t really worry about where Blake and Dono are, we’re a team at the end of the day, and we want to win games. So whoever’s on the field is who’s on the field at the end of the day, but I don’t really hold it against those guys because they’re getting more media attention to me. I feel like, at a time, those guys were probably getting less media attention than they felt like they were supposed to be getting.
“So everybody’s time is just different. And I’ve never been a guy that looks at somebody else’s like, ‘Oh, he’s getting too much attention,’ or something like that. No, those are my guys. So I just, in general, I don’t really look at Twitter that much or articles. I’ll check like once every couple of months, but I’m not really in tune with any of that. Because I feel like it kind of changes the way you play. If you go out there with the mindset, ‘Oh, they don’t think I can do this,’ that’s the mindset I came in with and it helped me, but now I feel like it can hurt me because if I’m thinking about it too much, it’ll kind of cloud my thoughts.”
Fans have gotten but a small glimpse of what Stokes is capable of. In his freshman season, he had 55 carries for 273 yards and one touchdown, but he says that he can do so much more — and that in practice he’s shown that to his teammates and the coaching staff.
So what is his game truly like? He says he still has a lot to work on, but he’s pleased with his progress thus far. And he thinks that the ardent maize and blue fans will be happy once he’s fully unleashed once his time comes.
“I don’t feel like I’ve shown half of my ability,” Stokes said. “If you look at the prep — and the coaches can attest to this — what I did in the games wasn’t even half of what I was doing in practice. Just like when I first came in, I was having like 50, 60-yard runs on a daily basis in practice. I think my longest run in a game was like 25. So I didn’t really get a chance to (showcase my abilities). I feel like if I get a chance to really stride out and to where if it’s me and somebody else in a race, I feel like I would surprise a lot of people because I’m really one of the fastest on the team when it comes to straight-line speed.
“So it’s just I don’t think I’ve had the opportunity to really show what I can do as far as my whole skill set. Running the ball, making people miss, I gotta get better at making safeties miss but linebackers and defensive linemen — I can make them miss all day. So it’s just a fact of getting more game reps in. I can do everything in practice, but if you can’t do it in the game, then it doesn’t matter. So it’s about getting more game reps in and when you get used to those game reps then you can really do what you do in practice. So it’ll just come with experience. The more I play, the more I’ll get talked to more and more I’ll really get in and do what I can do.”
[lawrence-auto-related count=3]
[affiliatewidget_smgtolocal title=”An offer for Wolverines fans” description=”For the best local Detroit news, sports, entertainment and culture coverage, subscribe to the Detroit Free Press.” url=”https://cm.freep.com/channeloffer?gps-source=CPSMGMIDARTICLE&utm_source=smg&utm_medium=inline&utm_content=wolverineswire&utm_campaign=smgtolocal&offer=W-SF&barBuild=atoms-pid” button_text=”$1 for 3 months”]