For the first time since Michigan's non-conference finale against UConn in 2022, the Wolverines on Saturday against East Carolina finished a game without a 100-yard rusher. It was a surprising sight for Michigan fans, who have grown accustomed to watching Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards rack up big numbers in the run game.

Neither back was ready to go as far as to say the running game struggled in the season opener, but both chalked it up to an eight, nine, or even 10-man box that the Pirates featured as they looked to stop one of the best backfields in the country.

"ECU, they had a really good game plan stopping the run," Edwards said when he met with the media on Tuesday. "Eight, nine, 10 people in the box... they was stopping the run... their gameplan was to stop 2 and 7, and they pretty much did."

"That's what we expected," Corum said during the postgame press conference. "I expected them to drop a little more... coming into the game, if you watch some of their videos from their press conference and stuff, they wanted to stop the run."

It seems Michigan is rather confident that its opponents will be forced to choose whether they'd like to stop the run or the pass, and that teams will have trouble — or will flat out be unsuccessful — stopping both.

UNLV head coach Barry Odom echoed that sentiment earlier this week as he prepared a game plan for Michigan.

"If they've got a weakness, I haven't found it yet. They're really solid and a great team," Odom said.

One of Michigan's known strengths the past two seasons has been the offensive line, which has been arguably the heartbeat of the program. On Saturday, the line — which is still working to figure out the best five players — perhaps wasn't as strong as it has been in the past.

Karsen Barnhart and Myles Hinton got the start at left and right tackle, respectively, with Trente Jones rotating in as a sixth lineman throughout the game. Barnhart and Hinton played all 58 snaps with the 1s, while Jones saw 24 snaps throughout the game.

Edwards was quick to point out that the offensive line did "a fantastic job," but that improvement in the run game is about "the simple things."

"There was multiple times against ECU that you notice, like, one player made the play," Edwards said. "If we could, like, either make the person miss or get a block, I'm not saying nothing on the offensive line because they did a fantastic job, but it's those little things that can help those; instead of five yards, we can make it 20, 30, 40, 50."

Despite a rushing attack that some would characterize as one that struggled, Edwards continued to hold an optimistic view going forward.

"Every single week we're going to progress in that," Edwards said. "I guarantee it. We're going to get better and better. It's the first game. Everybody looks a little rough the first game, and we're always going to get better. Every team gets better from the first game to the last game... we're just going to continue to progressively get better."

Perhaps some certainty among the men in the trenches will provide Corum and Edwards with more comfortability in the backfield, but until that happens, the duo will look to, as Edwards put it, "progressively get better."

But, if teams continue to sell out to stop the run, Corum says Michigan will be more than happy to throw the ball.

"If teams want to keep [trying to stop the run], please," Corum said as he motioned to J.J. McCarthy, who was seated to his right. "We'll keep throwing it, you know what I'm saying? So, teams will have to back up sooner or later."

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