HOUSTON — It had to be Blake Corum.
No one else could have delivered the finishing blow on the Michigan football team’s National Championship. It wouldn’t have been right.
After all, it was Corum who guaranteed that the Wolverines would win it all in the first place. It was Corum who came back to see it through, turning down a surefire NFL payday to settle “unfinished business.” So 14 wins down and one to go, it had to be Corum who sealed the deal.
Breaking the plane on a goal line run with 3:37 left in his college career, he plunged into the end zone, and with that, finished off all that he cared about.
Michigan’s season touchdowns record? Forget about it. How about scoring the most touchdowns in a Michigan career? Not a care in the world.
No, what Blake Corum came back to do was win a national championship, something unheard of for far too long in Ann Arbor. And as he and junior quarterback J.J. McCarthy tapped their ring fingers in celebration, Corum had put the champagne kiss of a national championship on ice. In the dying minutes of a 34-13 win over No. 2 Washington, Corum led No. 1 Michigan to finish what he started.
“We all knew it was gonna happen. Who else but Blake, man?” senior running back Kalel Mullings told The Michigan Daily. “He’s been doing it for four years since we’ve been here. Just so happy for all of us. This is crazy.”
Crazy because it wasn’t too long ago that none of this was possible for Michigan — at least that was how it felt. Think back to 2020, when the Wolverines went 2-4 in a season that almost nuked the program. Think of how desperate Michigan was, how bad it got bullied by Ohio State in Jim Harbaugh’s first five years until finally in 2020’s pandemic season, it just gave out.
But then a freshman from Marshall, Virginia, emerged, and he built it back up better than ever. Corum was the embodiment of the work it would take to bring the Wolverines back to the top.
It’s a specialty of Corum’s, really. The explosive cuts, the ability to drag opponents behind him — those are nice. But his work ethic is what made Monday’s national championship possible. It’s what made him turn down an NFL payday for a championship he knew he could win. And with Corum at the lead, everything and everyone else fell into place.
“For me, when we all decided to come back, we knew what it took to get here, right?,” Corum said. “And when we all said we were coming back, and the guys that had no other choice but to come back, we had to pay attention to details.”
Pay attention to these details: two touchdowns and 134 yards in the biggest game of his life. More importantly, 58 touchdowns and 3,737 yards in his career. Three wins over Ohio State, three Big Ten championships. And now, thanks to Corum’s game-sealing brush strokes, one National Championship.
In most worlds, it shouldn’t have happened. If it were anyone else, they would’ve left last year for an NFL payday, another great Wolverine who just couldn’t get it done.
But here’s the thing about Corum, he always finishes the job.
That’s why he woke up at 3:30 a.m. to make it to his workouts in high school, or why he came back from a knee injury to lead Michigan to this moment. It’s why when his first crack at the final touchdown stalled less than a yard short of the goal line, he got up off the ground and went straight to the backfield to ram it home.
When Corum called it unfinished business, that’s really all he needed to say. And 3:37 after his final touchdown as a Wolverine, Corum had wrapped everything up — the game, the season, his career — with the perfect bow.
As the game ended and Corum found himself enveloped in the moment, he took a moment to pray. His hard work had paid off. He had lived up to everything he promised.
Then, after celebrating with his teammates, he took the stage alongside Harbaugh and his teammates as confetti fluttered around him. His teammates smiled, they cried, they all cast their eyes on Corum as he celebrated victory. He had no more to give but a closing remark:
“We said we had unfinished business, so I’ll leave y’all with this: business is finished.”
Consider it done.