As Always, Blake Corum Is Ready For Saturday

Michigan running back Blake Corum is not worried about Michigan State's record and is never going to take the Spartans lightly.

The No. 4 Michigan football team is coming off a bye week.

With that week came a much needed rest for the Wolverines, and none might have needed it as much as junior running back Blake Corum. The 5-8, 210-pounder has already logged a whopping 146 attempts this season, prompting many to ask questions about how he has handled the load.

What he has done with that volume is impressive. Not once has he looked gassed, and is currently producing at a rate that has earned him Heisman consideration. Whatever pressure Michigan has loaded on Corum’s shoulders, he has welcomed it with open arms.

Looking forward to the game this weekend, Corum says he — and the rest of the Wolverines — are approaching it just like any other.

We treat every game like its the championship game,” Corum said. “There’s no such thing as going into the game like ‘oh we’re about to dominate them.’ Obviously we think that, but it's not overconfident, it's just being confident.”

Even amid his confidence and all the positivity in Ann Arbor surrounding the undefeated start to the season, a feeling of disappointment from last season’s game in East Lansing still lingers, and Corum doesn’t shy away from acknowledging it.

“Just disappointment, I feel like we had it, some things happened, I am disappointed in myself,” Corum said. “A dropped pass and then miscommunication between me and JJ, just disappointment.”

After last year's game, right after Corum got off the bus, it was straight to the weight room.

The weight room is a second home of sorts for Corum, and in the midst of one of the most bitter defeats of his college career, it's where he finds solace. Corum is a grinder; he’s been that way since he was in elementary school.

“I've always just loved working,” Corum said. “I remember in middle school, my dad would pick me up, and I would go to the high school and start lifting….That’s when I really started lifting, but when I was in elementary school, I was doing push ups and sit ups. I wasn’t doing quite a thousand, but I was knocking them out every night.”

Corum credits that work ethic to his parents, and it shows itself both on and off the field. In fact, Corum had to be told by others to not overwork and destroy his body in the process. But it took Corum a little while to actually heed that advice, with running backs coach Mike Hart playing a significant role in that persuasion.

“It's tough,” Corum said. “But I've definitely learned, and I've been told by people, that it's not all about going to the weight room, you can get extra work in other places like in film. I can find other ways to get better other than killing my body.”

With that change in approach, Corum is no longer just outworking his opponents in the weight-room, but with his film studies and other mental aspects of the game as well.

“Although I want to hit the weight room as much as I do or I want to work out as much as I can,” Corum said. “I've become smart and really took their advice, … I find other ways to get better at the same time and still keep that drive that I have.

That drive this week is being focused towards Michigan State. The term ‘bulletin board material’ always gets thrown around during these types of weeks, and it has only been exacerbated by the fact that both teams had a bye week.

But Blake Corum isn’t concerned with anything said on social media, written by the press, or even what’s being said in the Spartan locker room. There’s only one thing on Corum’s mind.

“I just want to win, man,” Corum said. “I just want to win, that can be my bulletin board material. Just winning, you know, I don't need them to say anything to get me hyped up. I'm just ready to win.”

And because it's Blake Corum, because you see the effort and energy he puts into every part of his life, it’s pretty easy to believe he will do anything in his power to achieve that.