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As Michigan football embarked on its run toward a national championship last September, Blake Corum offered a strong appraisal of the Wolverines.
“We’re a complete team,” the former star running back boasted after a rout of East Carolina in the season opener.
No glaring weaknesses existed, and the few discernible deficiencies were minor. There was zero doubt then that Michigan was built to win big. Corum came to that conclusion based on what he observed up close in practice. The internal competition was intense between a high-efficiency offense and a stingy defense. The two sides, each stacked with a slew of future NFL draft prospects, were so equal that 11-on-11 team periods behind closed doors would transform into all-out slugfests.
“It’s a battle every day,” head coach Sherrone Moore remarked last October. “We win one. They win one. We win one.”
It was high-level football, and Moore attributed the quality of practice sessions to the even distribution of experience among the first-teamers going at it.
“They’ve done it more,” he said.
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Over time, they all improved, continuing a cycle of development. Look no further than defensive tackle Mason Graham, the rising junior who last September attributed his accelerated growth to the lessons he learned while going up against one of the country’s top offensive lines day after day.
“Iron sharpens iron,” former defensive coordinator Jesse Minter said last summer.
In the ensuing months, Minter saw the Wolverines transform into a juggernaut that steamrolled every opponent in its path. Michigan produced more than 35 points per…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/michigan-footballs-remade-offense-playing-100823268.html
Author : Detroit Free Press
Publish date : 2024-04-06 10:08:23
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