Michigan Wolverines redshirt junior wide receiver Daylen Baldwin thought his football career was coming to an end as a sophomore at Morgan State in 2018, when he played sparingly. But he didn't give up, kept working and continued on his journey, which led him to Jackson State for two seasons — where he led the SWAC in receiving yards this past spring — before he wound up in Ann Arbor, which is less than 50 miles from his hometown of Southfield, Mich.
Baldwin joined the team roughly two weeks before fall camp began, so he had to get up to speed quickly.
"It’s not a specific amount of time, it just happens. You don’t really time it up, you don’t really think about it, but after a while, you’ll be like, ‘alright, I’m here, I’m settled in now,'" Baldwin said. "I can’t tell you exactly when [I got settled in], but I’d say, a week and a half into camp."
"Really what I was doing the whole time was just learning from those guys. Even though I’m the oldest one in the receiver room, I took a lot of information from the young guys, because they’ve been around here longer, they understand how [offensive coordiantor and wide receivers coach] Coach [Josh] Gatt[is] wants things done. "I tried to listen to them a lot, and I still do to this day."
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Baldwin was able to acclimate quickly enough to make an impact in the season opener, despite having an ankle injury heading in. A game-time decision, Baldwin caught a 69-yard touchdown pass from freshman signal-caller J.J. McCarthy in the second half of the Wolverines' 47-14 win over Western Michigan.
"I did what needed to be done," Baldwin said of playing against the Broncos after junior wide receiver Ronnie Bell went down with a season-ending knee injury.
He's feeling better and better by the week, saying he's at 90 or 95 percent healthy now.
"It’s a myth, playing at 100 percent," Baldwin noted. "You don’t play at 100 percent when you play football. It’s just what it is. It’s fine though, it’s just not the case. I’m good."
Baldwin played five snaps against Washington next week, but did not garner any targets. In fact, the Wolverines only threw the ball 15 times due to its run game seeing so much success (343 yards).
Still, there were things the wide receivers could've done to impact the game more, Baldwin revealed.
"We just gotta execute better as a receiving corps, just overall with everything," Baldwin said. "We’ve got to execute better, and when we run the ball like that, we’re asked to block and we’ve got to make sure we block. We can be like, ‘Oh, we want the ball more.’ Let’s make sure we execute what’s being asked of us.
"Don’t beg for the ball. I’ve been taught that since I was a kid, ‘Don’t beg for the ball.’ Everything will play itself out."
With Bell out, Baldwin feels an added responsibility on himself to step up into a more prominent role.
"Me personally, I’ve just got to keep on developing, understanding how Coach Gattis wants things done and keep adding on every single day, keep stacking," Baldwin said.
"For me, it’s like, everything I’ve been through has been a process. This is just another process, honestly. And I’ve struggled with every single process, but no struggle is no growth. So you’ve got to struggle before you can grow, and I’m fine with that.
"So just keep going, keep doing things, keep doing better every day."
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