2020 Michigan Football Preview Excerpt: Carlo Kemp Builds For Strong Finale

The following is an exclusive excerpt from the 2020 edition of The Wolverine's annual Michigan football preview magazine. The 160-page issue can be ordered for a limited time with FREE first-class shipping by clicking here, or you can order a digital copy for just $5!

Michigan football sports a new $21-million weight room, 32,000 square feet loaded with the best equipment available for turning soft flesh into steel.

Some 5,000 gross square feet of mezzanine area allow for observers to witness the transformation. Down where the work gets done, Michigan spared no expense.

That facility sat empty in the spring and early summer. Meanwhile, out in Boulder, Colo., Carlo Kemp and his brother jammed bricks into an old backpack, prepping for the 2020 football season to come.

Welcome to COVID-19 season. Shutdowns all over the place rendered winged-helmeted warriors the lone rangers of their own readiness. Michigan’s fifth-year senior defensive tackle — a captain in 2019, and likely a second-year captain in 2020 — hit the bricks.

“We had bricks that we had at the house, and we would fill the backpack with bricks,” Kemp said. “We found some cinder blocks at our house as well, so we were doing workouts with bricks and cinder blocks.

“The backpack was the greatest thing we had. We could do squats with it, we could do lunges with it, we could do curls … we were getting as creative as possible with this backpack.”

Kemp and his younger brother, who plays football for Colorado State-Pueblo, did everything they could with the makeshift weights. They were their own strength and conditioning coaches, motivational instructors and nutrition specialists.

Oh, and they were also in charge of safety regulation, monitoring proper backpack brick loads with scrupulous attentiveness.

“You want to add as much weight as possible, because you definitely can’t get close to any of the things we had at Michigan,” Kemp assured. “We tried to stuff the backpack to the brim as much as possible.

“We’ve got straps ripping, we’ve got bricks coming out the sides, because they can’t hold them anymore. We kind of had to play around with the optimal weight, where everything would just flow and fit nicely.”

Kemp desperately hopes everything flows and fits nicely during his fifth year at Michigan. He’s grateful, first off, for even getting one.

Kemp played against Rutgers in October of his freshman year, three weeks after making his college debut versus Colorado. That’s no big deal these days, when the NCAA allows four game appearances while retaining a redshirt.

Not so then, requiring Kemp to apply for an exemption to land a fifth year. He found out late last year that it had been granted.

“I was very excited, and I was lucky enough to get this fifth year and have this opportunity,” he said. “It’s awesome for me, and I’m really excited about it, but now it’s just wondering when am I going to get the opportunity to have this final season with all of my teammates.”

No doubt, 2020 produces obstacles like Jim Tressel produced NCAA violations.

Kemp’s flow and fit involves a lot. Sure, he’d like to serve as a captain for a second straight season. He plans to lead either way, but he learned a lot last year and wouldn’t mind applying those lessons in an official capacity.

He longs to get back to the easy banter and purpose-driven camaraderie with his teammates. The grind of football isn’t ever easy, yet it’s deeply satisfying to invest in that effort, side by side, with brothers dedicated to a cause.

Without question, Kemp wants to win. It’s not like he hasn’t been a part of strong Michigan teams over the past four years. The Wolverines won 10 games his true freshman season. They beat Wisconsin, beat Penn State, beat Michigan State and came within one play — or one courageous, integrity-infused spot of the ball by officials in Columbus — of going to the Big Ten Championship Game and likely the College Football Playoff.

The last three seasons, they’ve won 27 games, setting the Michigan State series aright, and holding their own against Penn State and Notre Dame. They’ve accomplished a lot … except their biggest goals of all.

Without any prompting, Kemp brought up Ohio State, and what he and his teammates consider an exasperating myth surrounding it. Michigan hasn’t beaten the Buckeyes under Harbaugh, and the past two years has taken it on the chin in unprecedented fashion.

But they care, Kemp assured. They care with every fiber of their physical and mental being, whether slinging bricks or trying to slow a scarlet tsunami.

“One thing that always gets lost — and you always hear from the outside — is that we don’t take that game seriously, or we don’t respect that game,” Kemp offered. “That game is all we think about. It’s the game that all of us want.

“Everyone in our locker room can’t wait to get to that game. That’s the only game we want to get to.”

Now, Kemp and his teammates can’t afford not to prepare diligently for the others, he cautioned. With a schedule beginning at Washington, and a Big Ten slate offering up Wisconsin, Penn State and a road game with the Spartans right out of the gate, anything else would be asking for disaster.

But the Wolverines know the ultimate key to their goals, to the Big Ten championship and the College Football Playoff. It’s about the showdown at the end of November.

“Obviously, there’s an emphasis on the 11 games beforehand,” Kemp said. “All those games are hard fought, and you play very good teams in the Big Ten. But when it comes to that final game, everyone’s mentality, everyone’s preparation, everyone’s demeanor is heightened.

“That’s the game we talk about. I’m not from Michigan or from the Midwest. But you go to Michigan, you learn pretty quickly, you take this game to heart. When you’re at Michigan your whole career, you embody that Michigan spirit and know the importance of that game.

“Even though I didn’t grow up in the rivalry, this rivalry is all I think about. It’s become such a staple in my life, how important it will be to win that last game.”

Kemp does more than talk about The Game’s importance. He lived it last November.

Michigan, through injury and attrition, became very short on experienced defensive tackles last season. Kemp himself numbered among the walking wounded, but only his teammates and coaches knew it.

Senior defensive end Kwity Paye pulled back the curtain a bit following OSU’s decisive victory. Some Wolverines were trying to stop the Buckeyes’ All-American running back J.K. Dobbins with barely a leg to stand on.

“I think a lot of it, we were playing with injuries that game,” Paye said during the bowl preparation for Alabama. “Not to make any excuses or anything like that. Carlo is a dog, he’s a warrior. He could barely walk. He was in boots. His feet are destroyed and he’s playing in that game, giving us everything he had.

“He was playing injured and that’s our captain. He wasn’t able to play his best game because of the injuries.”

Even now, Kemp won’t reveal the extent to which he battled through to even be on the field that day.

“You get to the end of the season and all of us have that wear and tear on our bodies,” Kemp said. “Playing that game, I was healthy enough to play, healthy enough to go. That’s a game you think about the entire year.

“When you go into that game, you want to be at your healthiest and be at your best. That’s just not going to be the case when you get to games late November.”

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To read the rest of this story, including more Kemp on Ohio State and some of his younger teammates at defensive tackle, former U-M defensive end Ryan Van Bergen on Kemp and more, buy your football preview magazine here!

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