Jim Harbaugh on impact of Donovan Edwards' return to the field, Heisman pressure for Blake Corum

Michigan Wolverines football has its two-headed monster in the backfield again. Sophomore running back Donovan Edwards missed two games with an injury but returned Saturday at Iowa, and he had a huge impact. Junior Blake Corum continues to carry the bulk of the load in the run game, but the two create a dynamic duo.

Edwards rushed 5 times for 29 yards and caught 4 passes for 21 yards, including a 12-yard touchdown reception in the third quarter, in the Wolverines’ 27-14 win over Iowa. On the score, Edwards found open space in the end zone so that a scrambling sophomore quarterback J.J. McCarthy could find him. The ball was tipped, but Edwards was still able to hang on and land in bounds. He also made the underrated play of the game, running down McCarthy’s fumble.

“He saved our bacon on the one when he jumped on that fumble,” Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh said on the Inside Michigan Football radio show Monday night. “It turned into a 21-yard loss, but did not result in a turnover. Just a great, heads-up play by him.

“He gave us some real good runs in the running game, and he made a couple nice catches out of the backfield, including a touchdown from JJ.”

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Having him back in the mix, and on Michigan’s road trip to Iowa City, was a major plus.

“He has a lot of energy,” Harbaugh said. “He’s only a sophomore, but he’s very much a leadership presence on and off the field on just the whole trip.

“You feel optimistic when he’s around. I feel optimistic when he’s around. And he’s got that deep voice, that loud voice and he just affects a lot of people — including me — in a positive way.”

Michigan uses Edwards as a jack of all trades out of the backfield. His receiving ability makes him a versatile weapon, and he gives the offense another gear.

“Only the real good athletes and guys with really good ball skills can make that kind of play look that easy, and he does that,” Harbaugh said of Edwards’ touchdown reception.

“I like guys who like football, and Donovan loves football. I love Donovan.

“It’s in the way he attacks everything and the way he approaches the game. If there’s somebody having more fun out there in practice or in the games … maybe a few guys that are as much as he is. He just genuinely has a lot of fun playing the game.”

Corum, meanwhile, has been Michigan’s work horse. He carried 30 times for a career-high 243 yards and 2 scores in the Big Ten opener against Maryland, and he notched 29 rushes for 133 yards and a touchdown at Iowa.

Harbaugh believes Corum is one of the rare backs that gets stronger and stronger as a game goes on.

“I wouldn’t say he needs it, because we’ve seen him be so good in the first quarter and rush for a bunch of yards on only 10 carries or 12 carries,” the Michigan coach said of him ‘needing’ more carries later in a game. “I don’t think he needs it, but I don’t think it fazes him, either. As we saw with 30 carries or 25 carries, once he gets past 20 … and there are some backs that are like that — you get past 20 carries, I mean, there’s nothing left there in the tank in the game. But the real special ones can go 25, 30 carries and look like they’re getting even stronger and better.”

He leads the nation with 10 rushing touchdowns for the season and is sixth in the country with 122.2 rushing yards per outing. He’s beginning to garner some Heisman Trophy attention, with FOX Bet giving him the sixth-best odds to win college football’s most prestigious individual award.

Jansen asked Harbaugh how Corum or any player handles Heisman hype.

“That’s a great question,” Harbaugh replied. “It’s a real healthy way … I guess I just don’t worry about that. He always has really high expectations. He has since he’s walked onto this campus. But he does it in a really calm, cool, collected way, as well. It’s like a smile.”

Constant improvement has been a theme with Corum during his Michigan career. Harbaugh pointed to his ability to make the second and third levels of a defense miss as his latest step forward.

“But now that he’s added this, getting up on the second level and making somebody miss … because he can do that at the first level, make the shallow cut, get up close to a defender and then make him miss. Now at the second level, five yards deep, he had a big hole, and there was somebody right in the middle of it, but that guy didn’t know whether to wind his watch or what to do. 

“That kind of thing when he can get up to the second level and the safeties, and if the corner has a beat on him, if he can get on the second level and turn the 10-yard gain into the 40- or 50-yard again, it’s coming. You saw it this past Saturday. Another thing that’s good to look forward to in his game.

“Also, he also looks better to me the more reps he gets, the more touches he gets. He shows no signs of any fatigue or anything.”