Blake Corum scouting report: Exploring Michigan RB's strengths and weaknesses

Blake Corum emerged as one of the Michigan Wolverines' primary threats the past few seasons.

After only 26 rushing attempts as a freshman, Corum carried the load for the Wolverines early in 2021, before Hassan Haskins took over late in the season. Corum touched the ball 168 times for 1093 yards and 12 touchdowns.

Last year, he took that to another level as the primary weapon in the backfield, even though Donovan Edwards had 1200 scrimmage yards himself. Corum was a Heisman front-runner until suffering a season-ending meniscus injury in his 12th game, by which time he had racked up 1543 scrimmage yards and 19 touchdowns on 258 touches (5.9 yards per rush).

His numbers dropped a little this past year (274 touches for 1362 yards), but he scored a massive 28 touchdowns and repeated as a first-team all-conference selection.

Breaking down Blake Corum's scouting report

Strengths

Corum has good density in his frame and is a very well-coordinated athlete. He consistently runs low and showcases an impressive combination of vision, feet and body control.
Corum has a feel for setting up running lanes, by being patient in some regards and altering his pace as needed, He can also lead defenders to the wrong spots with his body language.
Corum shows impressive short-area quickness to turn his body and navigate through traffic with reduced surface area, with multiple subtle changes to his running path. You regularly see him slide underneath pursuit defenders or blockers working out towards the sideline.
He possesses great peripheral vision to spot penetration and see when to bubble around sift blocks for example. He pairs that with highly efficient transitions, where he can press creases, drop the hips and then bounce outside. He can also slide behind blockers towards the edge, after forcing the second level to scrape over the top.
When he’s corralled in the backfield, Corum is impressive in a subtle fashion, with the way he fights his way back to the line of scrimmage.
He has the maturity to accelerate into traffic and maximize what is there to be had rather than looking for escape paths
He can surprise defenders on the edge of the box who don’t respect his burst out to the corner, by getting to the sideline and forcing them to adjust to much more conservative angles.
He doesn't lose speed as he bends his running path getting to daylight.
He typically doesn't give away his cuts with his head and can stare defenders into stopping their feet.
When he can’t get away from tacklers, Corum makes sure to always fall forward for an extra yard or two by turning his body away. He also launches himself forward regularly whilst he’s on his way to the turf (after getting tripped up).
He has some pretty powerful quads and can make guys bounce away, as he churns forward even if he has his back turned to the defense.
Corum shows good feel and understanding as a route-runner and catches the ball well, with soft hands. He dropped only one of 27 catchable passes over the last two years.
He was used on a lot of slant-flat concepts with a single receiver and seemed to have no issues securing the grab on rather challenging angles of arrival. Once the pass was secured, he snapped his head around and got north pretty much instantly.
He doesn’t quite pack the punch his former running mate Hassan Haskins did, but Corum steps up towards blitzers with confidence and a square base.
Corum is able to take advantage of his lower center of gravity to get under the chest of oncoming rushers and stymie their charge, as well as land some pretty effective chips, to allow his tackles to square up rushers off the edge.
He does a nice job of working up to his gap and then cleanly releasing through it, to present himself as a check-down option.
In 2021, he forced 49 missed tackles on 144 rushing attempts (34% of carries) and finished with 944 yards. On 247 carries in 2022, he forced 73 missed tackles and turned 36 of those into 10+ yard gains.
He earned the highest PFF grade (96.2) among all running backs in the country in 2022 and still reached an 84.0 mark this past season despite coming back from an ACL injury.

Weaknesses

He doesn’t boast of any elite physical traits, in terms of instant acceleration or top-end speed.
His per-carry average has decreased each of the last three years, down to 4.8 as a senior. So has his rate of 15+ yard runs, with only 13 across 258 attempts in 2023 (5.0%).
His creativity in the open field has decreased as he’s gone along and it manifested itself in a career-low missed tackle forced rate of just 11.6% as a senior.
His yards per route run decreased each of his first three years at Michigan, down to just 0.59 yards as a junior, before rising to a still underwhelming 0.87 this past season.

Blake Corum draft projection

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Corum presents the profile of a true three-down running back. He showcases the conceptual understanding, vision and footwork to effectively run gap/man or zone schemes, can sit down on blitzing linebackers and catch the ball well.

He lacks that break-away gear to turn good runs into true explosives with consistency, but he’s very efficient in avoiding negative plays and keeping the offense on schedule.

While he did fumble three times this past season, he generally displayed solid ball-security fundamentals, having lost it just twice on 457 touches through his first three years.

He also presents high football character with the way he handles himself on the field, his work ethic and his commitment to his team.

He may not have the special tools to ever turn into an All-Pro, but he’s the guy I can most easily see being a contributor in a lead role for a decade.

Grade: Late second round.