A four-star recruit out of Trotwood (Ohio) Madison, Roy Roundtree excelled at the high school level, posting 165 catches for 2,637 yards and 28 touchdowns as a junior and senior.
But at Michigan, he had to wait. Roundtree redshirted during his freshman season in 2008, former head coach Rich Rodriguezes’ first of three years in Ann Arbor.
“Coming in as a freshman, coming from a dominant school Trotwood-Madison, with competition daily and then getting up to Michigan, it humbles you,” Rountree told The Wolverine. “I wasn’t the biggest; I was 155. I wasn’t the strongest, but that year actually helped me. I got bigger, I got stronger, I got faster.”
As a redshirt freshman, the waiting game continued. He caught just two passes in the first eight games of the season, with one flash of what was to come — a nine-yard, game-tying touchdown reception with two seconds left to force overtime against Michigan State in an eventual loss.
The moment his trajectory changed came two weeks later, against Penn State at Michigan Stadium, when starting slot receiver Martavious Odoms went down with an injury.
“Martavious Odoms goes down with a knee injury, and then boom, [Kelvin] Grady’s up,” Roundtree said. “And then Grady dropped probably two passes, and then boom, I was up.
“Once I got that first taste of playing college football, man, it just became natural to me. I start doing what I’m supposed to do — making big plays.”
He never looked back.
Amazingly, Roundtree led the Wolverines in catches (32) and receiving yards (434) for the entire season, hauling in 30 balls for 390 yards over the team’s final four contests. That early-season patience and late-season surge led to him earning CollegeFootballNews.com Freshman All-America honors and Sporting News Freshman All-Big Ten recognition. Heading into the next season, Roundtree was on the preseason watch list for the Biletnikoff Award, which is handed out annually to the nation’s top pass catcher.
“It’s kinda funny, my first touchdown was against Michigan State to go to overtime,” Roundtree said. “We still lost, but it adds up to how my story was — I was kinda like the big play guy, you know, big catches and big, clutch moments.
"That gave me more confidence that, ‘Man, I can really do this.’ And definitely when I made the honor of the freshman team and All-American, I was like, I really have a good shot leading into my sophomore year on the field, but as a junior. Now I’m older; I’m a third-year player, but a second-year player on the field.”
He came up just shy of his goal to reach 1,000 yards receiving in 2010, notching 935 yards and seven scores on 72 grabs, but Roundtree was undoubtedly Michigan’s top receiver and the favorite target of sophomore quarterback Denard Robinson.
It was Roundtree who, on the play before Robinson’s famous game-winning touchdown run at Notre Dame, made a tough catch and third-down conversion to get the Maize and Blue down to the two-yard line with under 30 seconds to play.
“I would consider that as one of the big plays in my career that really got me going my sophomore year,” he said.
“I think all of the Notre Dame games were pretty much clutch moments,” he said, chuckling.
He said it with a sly laugh, but there’s no joke to spot. Roundtree will be forever remembered for his flat-out special performances against the Golden Domers, especially in the 2011 ‘Under The Lights’ game at The Big House, when he made the game-winning touchdown grab, with two seconds to go, in the eastern corner of the south end zone.
