Donovan Edwards’ career at Michigan has been a lesson in patience.
He expected 2022 would be Blake Corum’s final year with the Wolverines, allowing him to step into the lead running back role. It wasn’t. Even so, he expected a stellar season in 2023 would propel him to a first-round NFL Draft selection. It didn’t.
Edwards has spoken at length this offseason about the mental strides he’s made. During some of his darker moments last year, Mike Hart encouraged to talk to a therapist, and he did. Now, during youth camps he’s hosted this summer, he stresses to kids that life will have on- and off-field obstacles and to get help if needed. Edwards, for his part, no longer boasts of impending NFL success; he talks of being the best leader possible for his Wolverine teammates and hopefully, if he earns it, becoming the lead back this fall.
It’s perhaps too easy of an analogy, but Edwards says he needs to become more patient as a running back, too. Case in point: His first touchdown against Washington in the CFP National Championship Game.
You’ve probably watched the replay dozens of times, even though Edwards says he hasn’t. It’s a duo run, with Drake Nugent and Trevor Keegan doubling a Huskies tackle. This ultimately creates two lanes for Edwards, who plows straight ahead into Keegan’s backside. The running back bounces off the offensive tackle, sees the massive hole (formed in part because AJ Barner drives a defensive end five yards away from the play) and accelerates through it. That bounce means the second level of the Washington defense is hopelessly out of position, and Edwards reaches the end zone 41 yards later.
From a physical standpoint — the burst, the balance — it’s an impressive carry, but it’s also an example of how Edwards hopes to improve.
“My thing of all last year is, that play right there, I kinda predetermined what I was gonna do,” Edwards said this week. “I’d look at what’s the blocking scheme is, what the D-line is going to do. And I thought that I was gonna be able to hit it frontside ‘A’ gap. That’s where now I have to be a little bit more patient and not just predetermine everything.”
Of course, having a pre-snap idea of how a play should develop and how a defense might react isn’t a bad thing, Edwards said. It just became too much of a crutch for him in 2023.
“Just predetermined it, which isn’t a bad thing, but I think being more patient,” he said. “Because I was over-stressing myself last year. I knew that I was gonna go on on third-down pass rotation. A lot of things that just kinda killed myself a little bit, killed my confidence. But everything shaped out the way it was supposed to be.”
To that effect, Edwards says he’ll be watching a lot more film this year. As a senior, his academic load is lighter, which opens up his days before or after football practice. The first three years at Michigan have “made me a man,” he explained, which he credits largely to Mike Hart.
“Everything that he’s taught me and everything that I went through and everything that he showed me — the good and the bad,” Edwards said. “It’s gonna make me a hell of a player and a hell of a person. I’m very grateful for him because without him, I don’t know where I would be.”
That afternoon, Edwards was at a photoshoot with Wolverine Boots, a natural behind the camera or the mic. He was preparing for a trip to Indianapolis for Big Ten Media Day, where he’ll rock a bamboo suit. (“I’m gonna be looking clean,” he promised.) He was counting down the days, less than two weeks now, until fall camp.
“I’m at the point now where I could do all this mental taking care of myself, taking care of myself physically,” Edwards said. “Starting now, but during fall camp and during the season, I’ll be in a really good spot.”
And while Edwards can’t determine everything that will happen on game day, nor where his football future will take him, he’s committed to the old athlete’s cliche: Control the controllable.
“I’m doing my absolute best in a leadership position because we all have to step up as leaders,” he said. “I’ve been here for going on for four years, so I know what the ground rules have been. I know what the blueprint has been for us to be successful.
“It’s my obligation, just me individually, to uphold everybody — first of all, to uphold myself, and then uphold everybody else to the standard that we hold ourselves to.”