This time last year, Donovan Edwards wasn’t feeling his best.
He’d had knee surgery in February, which restricted his participation in spring ball with the rest of the Michigan football team. Edwards was losing his love for the game, and he didn’t get the chance to find his groove again with the pressure off. It set him back, and as he worked through his recovery, he never fully found his footing.
But one season later and with spring ball looming again, the senior running back is feeling better than ever.
“I’ve always had this fire in my heart,” Edwards said Monday. “… And I’ll be honest, I kinda lost it going into my junior year. Not feeling great, I’m not getting the carries that I want. But it clicked for me again that the fire in my heart was there again. … It showed back up.”
Fire back in his heart, Edwards is embracing the new season. At 14 pounds heavier than last year, he’s prepared for the wear and tear that a bellcow running back endures. The speed that’s created so many of his big plays is back. And in a young running back room filled with versatility, Edwards is ready to set the example.
But there’s something else about him, too.
These days, Edwards walks around with an air of maturity surrounding him. He’s seen the highs of a national championship and simultaneously the lows of a season that fell well short of expectations on an individual level. He’s no longer the kid that envisioned last season as his last with the Wolverines, a simple stepping stone to the next level.
“I’m grateful that everything has happened to me because all it’s gonna do is just continue to push me as a player and as a man,” Edwards said. “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 adversity is gonna make me a better football player.”
When looking at his biggest strengths last season, Edwards doesn’t point to his two-touchdown performance in the National Championship. He doesn’t look at anything on the field, in fact. Instead, he looks at how the season helped him grow, how it helped him find his inner fire again even as adversity tried to snuff it out.
And shaped by that adversity, Edwards is now embracing a new role. His teammates and coaches alike all say Edwards is filling the leadership void that last season’s departing class left behind. A holdover from the Michigan teams that went to three straight College Football Playoffs, Edwards is making sure that the culture he came into lasts a little longer.
“This team has been built upon a culture, and that culture started when I was a freshman,” Edwards said. “That was Aidan Hutchinson, Josh Wallace, (they) implemented what this team is all about. And then my sophomore year was the exact same thing. Junior year, exact same thing.
“Senior year for me, exact same thing. Nothing’s gonna change for this program.”
To make sure the culture doesn’t change, Edwards is ready to guide others. If he’s one leader in the running back room, he wants to see at least one more there. For the Wolverines to thrive, he wants to see multiple leaders in every other position room as well — and he wants to be the guy that builds them up.
Edwards isn’t changing, either. He’s still just being himself, at least according to graduate safety Makari Paige. That version of himself is just a little bit more confident now. It’s been battle-tested, humbled and built back up again.
“I’m still confident,” Edwards said. “Don’t mistake my confidence for arrogance, but I’m confident within myself and my abilities and my capabilities. So, my obligation is just continue to bring everyone up with me. Because as long as we can do that, then we will be successful.”
Following a season of turmoil and an offseason of turnover, Edwards is a new man. He knows what Michigan needs from him, both on the field and in the locker room. And he knows that there’s a long road ahead, one filled with the kind of adversity that will require plenty of Wolverines to undergo the transformation he already has.
He’ll be there to guide them every step of the way, though. With the fire back in his heart, Donovan Edwards is ready to set Michigan ablaze.