On the first carry of the biggest game of his life, Blake Corum felt his knee buckle. After his second, he knew he was done -- for the game, for the season and possibly for good at Michigan. He watched the rest of the Wolverines' win over Ohio State last year from the sideline, his Heisman-caliber campaign cut short by a torn meniscus that would require surgery. Then he watched them lose in the national semifinal for the second year in a row.
For Corum, it was no way to go out. The NFL could wait. With unfinished business at Michigan, he decided to return for a final season. He announced to the Crisler Center crowd during a basketball game last winter that he was coming back to win a national championship. Saturday in the stadium next door, Corum and Michigan cleared their biggest hurdle yet.
The Wolverines made it three in a row against the Buckeyes for the first time since they were crowned national champs in 1997. In a game that was seized in the trenches, Corum outdid his counter-star TreVeyon Henderson to lift Michigan to a 30-24 win. He put the Wolverines ahead with a fourth-down plunge in the first quarter, then put them ahead for good with a 22-yard scamper late in the third. They wouldn't have won without him.
A year after limping to the locker room in what he feared was his final game at Michigan Stadium, Corum was swallowed by joy as the fans stormed every inch of the field. When it was finally cleared, yellow pom-poms marked the path of his second-half touchdown and lined the back of the end zone, like highlighters on his biggest statement of the season.
"My last four years, I’ll look back and pray that I left a legacy. I stamped my mark here, I made a difference, on and off the field," said Corum, who's used his NIL money to fund several charitable efforts in the local community. "But this game, this is why I came back. I couldn’t go out in the Big House like I did last year hurt, so I came back for a game like this. I just hope I left a legacy that will be remembered."
Corum finished with 22 carries for 88 yards. That included a 4th-and-1 leap to sustain a scoring drive in the first half, and a 3rd-and-1 burst to keep another alive in the fourth quarter. His first touchdown and his 21st of the season set a Michigan single-season record. His second and the play of the game came immediately after Michigan's best offensive lineman and Corum's close friend Zak Zinter -- "another guy that came back for unfinished business," he said -- went down with a gruesome leg injury.
"Very emotional, seeing what he was going through down on the ground. But we came together," said Corum. "We knew we had to do it for him and the very next play, boom, we went up."
That made it 24-17, with the Big House thumping. If Michigan's slump-busting victory two years ago was cathartic for the crowd, the fans embraced this one like there was never a doubt. They shook the building until the Wolverines shook down the Buckeyes. Corum arrived at Michigan when the Big Ten ran through Columbus, and will leave with it ruled in Ann Arbor. Only Iowa stands between the Wolverines and their third straight conference title.
"There’s going to be more to come, but as of right now, this, to me, is my greatest win," Corum said. "Because when you say something you have to stand on it. When I put it out there before the season that we were going to do all these things, I knew I was going to have to back it up. My team came together and we all backed it up.
"But just like Kobe Bryant said, the job’s not finished, man."
It will continue a week from now in Indy. And assuming Michigan takes care of business, it will begin anew in the College Football Playoff, the last remaining hurdle for the Wolverines. They are three wins away from finishing their mission, and making Corum's return worthwhile. No turning back now.