Michigan Wolverines Football: Mike Hart Has A Plan For His Backs
Former Michigan Wolverines football running back Mike Hart, back in Ann Arbor as Jim Harbaugh’s running backs coach, was as ‘bell cow’ a running back as there ever was at U-M, carrying the load in his four years. The game has changed since Hart graduated in 2007, but his philosophies — many of them picked up from former Michigan assistant Fred Jackson, Hart’s position coach — haven’t.
If there’s a hot hand, he’s likely to ride it. When circumstances dictate a change, he’ll go that route instead.
He also disagreed with the notion that one back can no longer carry 20 or 30 times a game the way he used to.
“I wouldn’t say it doesn’t exist anymore. It can happen,” Hart said Thursday. “It depends on how many times you’re running the ball. I was the only running back that played, but we have lots of guys involved. Most people play more than one running back now, so it’s hard to get 30 carries a game.
“But I’ll be happy as long as we win. I’d rather have 20 and win than 40 and lose.”
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As of now, it appears two backs will carry most of the load. Redshirt sophomore Hassan Haskins averaged 6.1 yards per carry last year and has proven to be tougher to tackle each year. Second-year frosh Blake Corum is built like Hart, smaller in stature, but has characteristics his coach didn’t.
“The experience Hassan has — Blake is obviously still young from that standpoint — but we have two new guys in [freshmen] Donovan Edwards and Tavi [Dunlap] rounding that out,” Hart continued. “They’ve been great. The young guys keep getting better every day, and that’s what you want to see. They’ve grown a lot. They are mid-year guys, so they have a beat on the offense, understand the offense … so, it’s just cleaning up all the little things with those two guys.”
But Haskins and Corum “continue to do what they do,” Hart said. They understand their blocking assignments and have become good in pass protection, something at which their position coach excelled. They’ve done a great job picking up blitzers and know what theyr’e doing.
As runners, Haskins is thunder to Corum’s lightning.
“Hassan, he’s just strong. He’s sneaky … breaks a lot of tackles,” Hart said. “The first guy doesn’t tackle him. He’s a guy if you see him in shorts inside of camp, you’re not as impressed. The pads get on, he’s a strong runner, breaks a lot of tackles.
“Blake’s an undersized guy. He’s explosive, but he’s just a confident kid that wants to be great. He’s one of those guys you want him to slow down because he’s always going, going, going. He works his tail off, one of the hardest working running backs I’ve ever been around.”
Size is where the comparisons to him stop, Hart said.
“He works a lot harder than I worked,” he quipped with a laugh. “Size wise, yes. Blake’s a lot faster than me — a lot quicker than me. If I was that fast, I’d probably still be playing in the NFL.
“He’s a great kid, just his mentality, the way he does things, approaches the game. I think it’s really similar to the way I did it. He doesn’t like making mistakes, is not happy when he makes mistakes and wants to be perfect, something that reminds me of myself from that standpoint.”
And then there’s Edwards, who “looked like what a five-star is supposed to look like” in the spring, according to Harbaugh. He’ll be the third back, but as Hart noted, it usually takes more than two running backs to get through a Big Ten season.
Edwards will get his chances, and he’s going to be a great back — in time.
“He’s just an explosive player … the kinds of runs he made in high school, he has the ability to make those in college,” Hart added. “When he switches gears, you can tell.
“He doesn’t look out of place. A lot of freshmen when they come in, they’re getting used to the speed on defense and making people miss. I think it takes a little transition, and it’s still a transition for him. He’s not even almost where he needs to be, but you can see he has the skill set to be really special one day, if he gets better. He’s not there yet.
“But if he continues to grow, continues to take coaching — which he does — he has the ability to be a really good player one day.”
At the end of the day, Hart said, he’ll play them how he sees fit. His philosophy is to let a guy get comfortable in a game, find out his crew’s strengths and weaknesses. There are always first and second down backs, third down backs, short yardage backs, etc., and sometimes it’s the same guy.
It’s his job to figure it out — who is better on third and short, third and long, etc. — and he’s on his way.
“Whoever earns those jobs, whoever is better at them, that’s who is going to be in the game in those situations from that standpoint … when it’s clear as day,” he said. “Obviously, you can’t just say, ‘oh, he’s in the game so it’s going to be a pass.’ But if it’s a 3rd and 12, who’s the third and 12 back?
“There were three or four running backs that played [my freshman year], as well. Any team you look at, there are going to be three of four running backs that play. We’ll get to the end of camp, figure out who is ready to go and play them as we see fit.”
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