For athletes, sometimes the most difficult part of getting through a sports injury is more than just the recovery and rehabilitation aspect of it.

Sometimes, the mental part is just as important, too.

For Michigan running back Blake Corum, he was riding the high of a successful season that likely would've seen him be in serious contention for the Heisman Trophy until one split-second moment changed everything for him.

Set on heading to the NFL, those dreams were dashed as he suffered a knee injury on a tackle just before halftime against Illinois during the final home game of the season. The injury would sideline Corum for the rest of the season and he would end up having surgery with a recovery timeline of six months.

Having something taken from him as it did, the process had a profound impact on his mental well-being.

"The hardest part was getting myself out of a deep hole," Corum said during the first part of a multi-part series with The 33rd Team. "I went to a space where I didn't think Blake Corum could go. I might've only told my dad or my mom this but, for a time, I thought everything was always going to be fine. No matter how bad I was down, no matter what happened in my life, I was going to be fine. A lot of people don't express their feelings. When I first got injured, I wasn't. I wasn't good. My mind was racing. Things weren't going my way.

"I was originally in the Heisman race, now I wasn't. Now I'm just known as Blake Corum got surgery on ESPN. I was at the TCU game, I couldn't help my team. They were losing, I was just there on the sidelines. I was in a deep hole."

As someone who was known as a workhorse who is constantly perfecting his craft whether it was in the weight room or watching film, there was a time that none of those things were appealing to Corum, who admitted that, at one point, he would rather eat fast food than a workout.

Fortunately for Corum, he found his way out of the hole he was in and realized the opportunities that he still had ahead with plenty left to achieve during his final season at Michigan.

"It wasn't even the recovery part, the hardest time in my recovery was getting myself out of that hole," Corum said. "No one knew. No one knew because I was still me, I was still smiling. But, deep down inside, I knew it wasn't me. I'm the type of guy who you have to kick out the weight room. I didn't even want to be in the weight room. I wanted to eat McDonald's. I didn't want to eat rice and chicken. I just wasn't me. The only person that could've gotten me out of that is me. It took a while. I would go to the weight room one day and not come in for the next four days. I wanted to do nothing.

"Then I realized, why are you feeling bad for yourself, you're blessed. People would die to be in your position. People would die to be at the University of Michigan. People would die just to have all these opportunities that you have. That's when it clicked."

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