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Bell Gives Credit For His Career Day To Blocking Efforts Of U-M’s WRs

Michigan Wolverines football sophomore wide receiver Ronnie Bell had the best game of his U-M career on Saturday, hauling in nine catches for 150 yards in the Maize and Blue’s 44-10 beatdown of MSU.

Bell’s 37 receptions and 621 yards both lead the team this year, but despite that fact, the sophomore has yet to find the end zone.

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Michigan Wolverines football sophomore receiver has reeled in at least 81 yards in four different games this year.
Michigan Wolverines football sophomore receiver has reeled in at least 81 yards in four different games this year. (Lon Horwedel)

“Absolutely,” he exclaimed Tuesday night when asked if his touchdown-less drought is motivation to get in. “C.J. [freshman receiver Cornelius Johnson, who found the end zone for the first time over the weekend] hit me today with, ‘Who’s got more touchdowns?’

“We’re always messing around and he got me on the chin a little bit.”

Offensive coordinator Josh Gattis brought the ‘speed in space’ mantra with him when he was hired in the offseason, but that slogan was nowhere to be found on the field throughout the first month and a half (or so) of Michigan’s season.

It came out in full force against the Spartans, however, with the Wolverines constantly getting the ball to Bell in space and allowing him to produce after the catch, en route to 87 yards after the catch (YAC).

“The outside blocking was amazing,” he explained, deflecting the credit elsewhere. “When you have the ball in your hands, your job is easy when everyone in front of you is on the ground.”

Head coach Jim Harbaugh praised his wide receivers’ blocking efforts on Monday, admitting it wasn't where it needed to be earlier in the year.

The wideouts turned in their best performance of the season in that department against MSU, however, and it helped lead to the 384-yard showing for senior quarterback Shea Patterson.

“My dad told me when I was younger that I wouldn’t play if I wasn’t willing to block, so blocking has always been something I take personal," Bell revealed. “We’ve all done a good job of making it personal, and all the receivers have blocked their tails off.”

Bell came to Michigan as a two-star recruit who had originally signed to play collegiate basketball at Missouri State, but he has clearly made the transition to being full time on the gridiron smoothly.

“Basketball is a lot of up and down, up and down,” he noted when asked if his basketball background has helped him on the football field at all. “Once I got athletic and started dunking, my dad would tell that I didn’t care for my body when I’m in the air. So when the football is in the air, there’s no hesitation for what’s around you — you just have to catch it.

“Crossing someone over in basketball and making a cut in football are kind of the same thing, except you don’t have to dribble it.”

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Other Notes From Ronnie Bell's Time With The Media

• The lowlight of Bell’s season occurred late in the Oct. 19 loss at Penn State, when the sophomore dropped a potential game-tying catch in the end zone that likely would have sent the contest into overtime.

ABC’s cameras then spotted the sophomore crying on the sideline, and the sequence gained plenty of national attention as a result.

“I was sick,” he recalled. “I just remember feeling like I had let everybody was down. I was mad at myself and it was a sick feeling. Everybody was [encouraging me after it]. There wasn’t anybody who wasn’t there for me, and they were all there to pick me up.

“It was hard to be down on myself by the time we got back [to Ann Arbor], because everyone was picking me up.”

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