ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The Michigan football offense looks like it could use all of the help it can get after two weeks. The offensive line has not jelled at all, and perhaps it struggled because it played a solid, if not elite, team in Texas last week. But the run game hasn’t been working effectively, nor has the pass game.
In our mind, there’s one solution: get running back Donovan Edwards more involved in the pass game.
Edwards was spoken of as the team’s best receiver in 2022, despite having players like Ronnie Bell, Roman Wilson, and Cornelius Johnson on the team. The speedy tailback from West Bloomfield came to Ann Arbor as a versatile player and Michigan deployed him thusly, with Edwards getting 18 receptions for 200 yards and two touchdowns — numbers that likely would have been much higher if it wasn’t for injuries he sustained throughout that year. The year before, Edwards had 20 catches for 265 yards and one touchdown, and last year, he had 30 catches for 249 yards — so these are numbers that can be easily replicated.
However, through two games, Michigan has thrown the ball to Edwards three times and he has two yards and a touchdown. So will those numbers increase in the coming weeks?
“Donovan – obviously you guys know his production speaks for itself. His career throughout Michigan, his career in Michigan, he’s a guy that you can create mismatches with,” wide receivers coach and Edwards’ former high school coach Ron Bellamy said. “Getting him on safeties and linebackers, that’s something that constantly we’re going to involve in the game plan and whatnot.
“And as far as receiver skills, me working with him, that’s something that pre-practice we talk about different things. And he’ll come over during special teams. And, if I’m doing things with receivers, he’ll come over and jump in there with his ball drills, footwork drills, or just us talking about just techniques that we’re going to use on certain routes because the running backs have the ability to do some of the same things, especially a guy with his skill set.”
So why hasn’t Michigan taken more advantage of his skill set? Edwards appears to be the type of player who could lead the team in receiving (if not for tight end Colston Loveland) and his inclusion in the pass game could take the pressure off of a group of receivers that have very little time on task in terms of production.
Bellamy says it all depends on the game plan each week but that Edwards does have those unique abilities that can be mismatches for teams on the schedule.
“It just depends on our opponent, where the weakness is that we can exploit — ways we can get Donovan going,” Bellamy said. “And we really like our receivers, we really like our tight ends. We like Donovan as well, and some of the other running backs can do the same thing. It’s just week to week what does the defense allow us to do? And that’s how we decide who’s going to get the ball and whatnot.”
We’ll see if the Wolverines get Edwards going, either on the ground or through the air, this week with Arkansas State coming to town for a noon game.