Prolific Star Player of Michigan is back on fire for the 2024 Season…

Michigan running back Donovan Edwards (7) breaks free on a touchdown run during the College Football Playoff championship game at NRG Stadium in Houston on Monday, Jan. 8, 2024.

ANN ARBOR – Michigan running back Donovan Edwards has always been candid about his desire to be great.

Coming off a breakout sophomore season in a complementary role to Blake Corum, Edwards told Pro Football Focus last offseason that he will go down as “one of the greatest running backs to ever play the game” and revolutionize the position like Walter Payton and Barry Sanders.

He was a top-50 recruit coming out of West Bloomfield High school and spoke Monday about his inner drive fueled by a “fire in his heart.”

Despite the bold claims he made publicly last summer, Edwards, internally, felt like the fire flamed out heading into the 2023 season.

He told reporters that he had surgery to repair a torn patellar tendon that forced him to miss spring practice, which effected his offseason conditioning.

The hype Edwards generated with his standout performances against Ohio State, Purdue and TCU at the end of the 2022 season tapered after a lackluster start to 2023.

Crum assumed his lead role in the backfield, and Edwards’ production dipped, totaling 393 rushing yards and three touchdowns and averaging 3.48 yards per carry heading into the national championship

Edwards didn’t top 52 yards rushing in any of the first 14 games but exploded for 104 in the national title game over Washington on just six carries, scoring twice on rushes over 40 yards.

With Corum off to the NFL, Edwards is expected to be the No. 1 running back in 2024 and is feeling healthy this spring.

“I’ll be honest, I kinda lost (the fire) going into my junior year,” Edwards told reporters Monday, which marked the second week of spring practice. “Not feeling great, not getting the carries that I want. But it clicked for me again, that fire in my heart was there again. It became evident that – there was a practice that it just showed back up.

“I’m great that everything has happened for me, because all it’s going to do is continue to push me as a player and as a man. I can’t sit up here and say I haven’t faced adversity because I have. But that adversity has made me a man and that adversity is going to make me a better football player. I’m still confident. Don’t mistake my confidence for arrogance, but I’m confident within myself and my abilities and my capabilities. My obligation is to continue to bring everybody else up with me, because as long as we can do that, then we will be successful.”

Edwards doesn’t recall the exact practice last year that restored his inner fire but noted it was late in the season. The fire has carried over into March.

“I feel great,” Edwards said. “My cuts are looking better; I’m playing better. The speed is back and where it needs to be and I put on 14 more pounds. Being able to stay healthy all last year and to be able to participate in spring ball right now continues to boost my confidence.”

Up to 214 pounds, Edwards hopes the added weight will improve durability with an increased workload in 2024.

Speed has always been an elite attribute of Edwards, but he struggled to find holes behind Michigan’s veteran offensive line last season. He said he is continuing to hone his vision, pre-snap reads and athleticism leading into the Aug. 31 season opener against Fresno State.

“You can never be satisfied in what you have, in your abilities,” Edwards said. “There’s never a time that you need to be satisfied within a game, no matter how good you are. Blake Corum is great at making safeties miss, but what is he still doing? Making safeties miss. He’s continuing to work on it.”

Corum and more than a dozen other former Wolverines participated in Michigan’s pro day on Friday ahead of April’s NFL draft. Edwards might have originally planned to be working out alongside them but is confident his time will come.

“I wanted to leave, but at the same time, I think that God had humbled me and was like, ‘This isn’t your plan. This is my plan for you,’” Edwards said. “I’ve assessed everything that has happened for me. A strength for me last year, nothing football-wise, it was just me growing as a man, me facing adversity and hitting it straight on. But the weakness was, ‘How tough am I? How much can I endure?’ Like contact balance for football, how can I improve driving the feet, how can I improve that?

“But everything last year, I’m blessed that it has happened. There are a lot of things that I have to grow in as a man, and last year just showed me everything I need to do. I feel like I’m in a great spot though.”