Donovan Edwards shares early thoughts on Tony Alford, areas of emphasis
Michigan Wolverines running back Donovan Edwards projects to be one of the foundational players of the 2024 squad that seeks to defend its College Football Playoff title. But the room has new leadership at the top, and the adjustment has been somewhat smooth.
Tony Alford joined the program two weeks ago, replacing Mike Hart in the role as Michigan’s running backs coach. Edwards gave some of his takeaways from his first few practices on the job and what their relationship is like.
“He recruited me to Ohio State during my sophomore year of high school,” Edwards told the media on Monday. “And our relationship just continued to grow. It’s not about rivalry to a certain respect. You respect your opponents. That’s what Ohio State and Michigan are all about. We respect each other.
“My impressions of Coach Alford so far are the guys love him, I love him and he tells us the same thing. It’s great to have Coach Alford here because he’s really detailed in the game, and it’s great to have him here. We love Coach Hart and it’s unfortunate that he’s not a part of this team anymore, but he will always be because he’s a Michigan legend. My relationship with both of them will continue to grow.
“Coach Moore did a great job in hiring Coach Alford. So, this team is just going to continue to thrive. He’s not really different. They have the same things just different details and different terminology.”
Edwards is looking to improve all facets of his game entering a year where more will be expected of him in the Michigan backfield.
“Being able to read defense pre-snaps, vision, balance, cuts on safeties, pass protection, everything, man,” Edwards said. “You can never be satisfied with what you have in your abilities, especially big play capability. I still want to improve on that. There’s never a time that you need to be satisfied within your game, no matter how good you are, Blake Corum is great at making safeties miss, but what is he still doing? [Working on] making safeties miss. We’re doing it. He’s continuing to work on it. So everything that I continue to do is everything that I’m going through has to continue to improve.”
Corum put on weight to turn himself into more of a short-yardage and power runner, but Edwards sees his transformation a bit differently. Coming off a year where he says he was feeling the residual effects of an offseason procedure, it is all about staying durable.
“I don’t think it’s about short yardage for me,” Edwards said. “I think it’s about staying durable because you’re going against 300-pound linemen and 240-pound linebackers. So, being 200 is a big difference between being 210, 215. For each pound that you add on, you can continue to sustain whatever it is that you need to be to continue to grow as a football player.
“There are some guys that feel comfortable and that’s what their body is about and that’s how it operates. But for me, I think that being able to be at least like 210 is really good for me to be able to play it and carry the load as best I can.”
