Michigan has areas it must improve, but a star to lead the way

By Bryan Fischer
FOX Sports College Football Writer

There’s something to be said for winning your clunkers in college football. In the case of No. 4 Michigan, it said a little more than the team would have wanted.

The Wolverines edged Maryland on Saturday afternoon by an all-too-deceiving final score of 34-27. It was a performance that belied the number next to the home team’s name at the Big House in Ann Arbor and did plenty to underscore that the reigning Big Ten champions are a work in progress this early in the season.

Highlights: Michigan edges Maryland

Blake Corum was a superstar, rushing 30 times for 243 yards and two touchdowns, while J.J. McCarthy passed for 220 yards and two touchdowns as Michigan moved to 4-0.

Still, winning ugly will beat the alternative every day of the week in a sport that is overly and overtly punishing for every little slip-up.

Make no mistake, Michigan staggered in its first major test of the season, even if it wasn’t a full-on stumble to open league play. The Wolverines trailed for the first time all year and were unable to get a passing game going down the field. Drives fizzled. The defense allowed three consecutive scores to open the game and was chasing Maryland quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa all day when not giving up chunk play after chunk play.

We were all wondering what would happen after a tissue-soft non-conference slate had the Wolverines in the College Football Playoff hunt. Now we have a better idea about where they stand in relation to the elite sides down in Georgia and Alabama.

The good news for Jim Harbaugh & Co. is that they’re 4-0 and moving on to their first road test of the year against Iowa next week.

The better news for the maize and blue is that the school’s support staff may have themselves a budding Heisman Trophy campaign to run, too.

That is courtesy of junior Blake Corum, who not only saved the team with an incredible performance but also looks like a tailback who is a problem for the rest of the Big Ten moving forward. In a day and age where it seems as if everybody in the backfield specializes in something, his ability to bounce it outside and take it to the house as easily as he can run between the tackles for tough yards will be appreciated far beyond the Michigan offensive staff.

Blake Corum breaks off a 47-yard TD

Michigan took a 34-19 lead over Maryland in the fourth quarter after Blake Corum ripped off a 47-yard touchdown rush.

Corum’s 243 yards on the ground were the most by a player in a Wolverines uniform since 2010, and the first time a player rushed for over two bills since 2017. Not too shabby for a kid who went to high school just up the road from the Terps.

“This guy was a stud today,” Harbaugh told Jenny Taft on FOX after the game. “He’s the consummate worker, team guy all the way.”

Indeed, a team-saver on Saturday with both of his stellar touchdown runs, the first of which came on fourth down after he smartly bounced it outside and out-ran the Terps’ defense. He later flashed the speed again on a 47-yard scamper along the sideline that iced the win with 2:24 left.

Corum’s emergence as a threat on every touch is beneficial in more ways than just racking up yards. Mostly, it allows for continued patience with quarterback J.J. McCarthy. The sophomore signal-caller seemed off for most of the game, finishing 18-for-26 for 220 yards and two touchdowns. Despite those decent numbers, he continued to sail balls long, missed on several third-down conversion attempts over the middle and was largely contained inside the pocket and unable to show off his dual-threat skills.

That’s not to say there were no silver linings from the outing. A 49-yard strike to wideout Ronnie Bell with just over eight minutes to go prompted a big fist pump from Harbaugh and set up Corum’s game-winner three plays later.

Still, McCarthy and the Wolverines know they’ll have to be better as the competition level ramps up moving forward.

And that’s no slight to the visitors, who continue to show progress in Mike Locksley’s long rebuild in College Park. Maryland was 0-28 against ranked Big Ten teams since joining the conference, allowing 44.3 points per game with a cumulative -39 turnover margin coming into Saturday.

Against Michigan, the Terps showed they were, if not quite equals, at least extremely competitive. That’s a tangible development for a program hoping to make more noise than simply going to a bowl game in 2022.

The Wolverines are in a much different position, with far higher aspirations. After making the playoff last year and winning the Big Ten, a new standard has been set around town and the maize and blue are intent on proving to the rest of the college football world that last season was no fluke.

Sneaking past Maryland won’t help prove that case in the short term, but there’s still something to be said for adding to the win column and keeping the right side unblemished.

Win enough of those clunkers, get better because of them, and you should be sitting right where you need to come December.

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Bryan Fischer is a college football writer for FOX Sports. He has been covering college athletics for nearly two decades at outlets such as NBC Sports, CBS Sports, Yahoo! Sports and NFL.com among others. Follow him on Twitter at @BryanDFischer.