Back for senior year, Donovan Edwards eager to lead Michigan in 2024: ‘I’m still hungry’

Now 40-3 in his career, Edwards is hoping to help pass along that winning formula to what will be a much younger offense in 2024.

Over the last week, the Michigan football team has seen a substantial portion of its 2023 national championship-winning roster depart for the NFL.

Though not unexpected, the Wolverines leading passer, rusher, top two receivers, top six offensive linemen and leaders in tackles, tackles for loss, sacks and pass breakups all announced they were moving on.  In total, 13 starters or key rotation players with remaining eligibility declared for the NFL Draft, on top of six starters who were out of eligibility.

Despite his plans ahead of the season, Donovan Edwards wasn’t one of them.

On a team full of players who had breakout seasons and improved their draft stock this fall, Edwards had what he himself would consider a letdown season. Even with a 104-yard, two-touchdown showing in the national title game, Edwards only ran for 492 yards on 4.2 yards per carry with five rushing touchdowns this season. He added 249 receiving yards, but still finished the season just 29th in the Big Ten in scrimmage yards per game — a drop-off from last season and far from where the preseason dark-horse Heisman candidate expected to be.

Even as he relishes in winning a team national title, that disappointment led to hunger, which played a role in Edwards opting to come back.

“I’m still hungry,” Edwards said in an interview with Jake Butt conducted by the Champions Circle. “The season wasn’t how I wanted it to be necessarily, and just popping out the way that I did on the on the biggest stage, for me it’s like ‘that’s great.’ But you know, what’s what’s better than doing it again? What’s better than working hard in the off-season and to be able to do it again? So that’s where my mindset is. Like, I’m still hungry, and I feel like now like I’ll be, you know, one of the leaders on the team now and that’s what I want to implement to the guys. Everybody’s gone right now, so like what we have to do is continue to stay together. Bring the young guys up have the older guys like Kalel and I mentor Cole Cabana, Ben Hall, Jordan Marshall that’s coming in you know so that’s where my mindset is.

“Like, we’re still hungry and the other guys that I’ve talked to too, like Tavierre, Alex Orji, Will, C-Love, we’re still hungry. Even though we have the the saying that ‘the job’s finished,’ we still want more.”

As Edwards notes, Michigan will turn to him to be a leader and face of the team. Outside of Colston Loveland, no one else on Michigan’s offense has the experience and track record that Edwards, a former top-40 recruit, has. Edwards led all Power-Five running backs in yards per carry in 2022, and cracked 1,000 scrimmage yards that season. Despite playing behind Hassan Haskins in 2021 and Blake Corum in 2021, 2022 and 2023, Edwards has more than 2,400 scrimmage yards and 18 touchdowns through three seasons.

He was actually in Pro Football Focus’s list of top-100 draft prospects before opting to return for his senior year. In addition to wanting to showcase himself as a top-50 or even first-round prospect, the chance to earn a Michigan degree and spend another year growing while close to his family and friends (Edwards hails from West Bloomfield) made a return appealing.

“I made my pros and cons list, right, and for me, a couple pros were getting a degree you know I’ll graduate in the fall get a degree,” Edwards said. “I’ll still be comfortable in my hometown in my home state, being able to connect with other people. Some of the cons were things that — it’s just like a possibility like maybe will happen, versus the pros it was like it’s going to happen.

“So for me, like I’m not here for anything else but to be the best version of myself and bring the best out of others. It’s not about money for me, it’s not about gloating about myself, it’s not about that for me. For me it’s more so just doing what I have to do, just being a great person. And what other place to be able to grow at than at the University of Michigan, which is the best school in the country? So that’s just what it was for me, just made my pros and cons list, and the pros outweighed the cons. I also prayed on it too and and in that, I just feel like that’s what that’s what God needs me to do is to continue to grow up, continue to be a righteous man and uplift other people and to be a mentor now.”

It’s also not lost on Edwards that he will be one of the veteran voices younger players look to during the offseason. Michigan’s workouts in the offseason over the past three years have become the stuff of legends.

Most of Michigan’s 2024 roster weren’t around for the Wolverines turnaround from 2-4 in 2020 to 12-2 in 2021. But Edwards was, and he’s hoping to help pass along that winning formula to what will be a much younger offense in 2024.

“I always just refer back to Josh Ross and Aidan Hutchinson’s senior year. They are literally the reason like why we have been successful, because they laid down the foundation the blueprints and we just took that and ran with it. So it’s up to the leaders of this upcoming season to be able to continue to implement that. It’s a lot of more younger guys, like Jadyn Davis who’s about to be a freshman, Semaj (Morgan), Fred (Moore), Melo (English), Jyaire (Hill), they’re all about to be sophomores Zack Marshall.

“They weren’t there for that, so it’s up to us to continue to lay the foundation, what they instilled in us because clearly what they laid into us has made us successful so we have to just carrying on that tradition.”

In his interview with Butt, Edwards opened up on the mental challenges he endured this season, which included leaning on his Christian faith and picking up therapy. In Edwards’ mind, his struggles this season were a blessing, as it forced him to look inward and reflect, and consequently grow from a season full of setbacks.

He’s taking a similar approach to seeing so many of his teammates depart, including fellow high-profile juniors JJ McCarthy and Junior Colson. Though Edwards is bummed to see so many of his close friends and teammates move on — and, whether he says so or not, that he isn’t joining them — the running back believes that this is an opportunity for him and his teammates to begin their own journey.

And that’s with or without Jim Harbaugh as head coach, according to Edwards.

“Personally, I’m very happy that we’ve had the success and all my teammates have had the success,” Edwards said. “But for me, like, it’s a congratulations to them, but I also have to do me. Like if Coach Harbaugh goes, by all means he deserves it and that’s not changing my decision to stay here in Michigan at all. I’m a Michigan man through and through, and I’m going to do everything that I can to uphold the standard of being the leader and the best for me and the team. It’s sad to see all of them go because, you know, I came in with Junior (Colson), JJ (McCarthy), and those were my brothers for life and I was very sad when they said like they was gone. Like dang. But at the same time, I also have to uphold my destiny and uphold my mission.”

That mission? Lead the next wave of Michigan success.

“I know what my mission is — to uphold the standard and to be a leader now, and I’m gonna do my absolute best to do that,” Edwards said with a grin. “Like I might be a tyrant you know, I might be something that people don’t like, but I just see it as me doing it just to win. And I’m also gonna be myself. If there’s nothing to say there’s nothing to say you know but I just have to do me at the end of the day.”

Doing him paid off in the national championship game. Now, Edwards is eager and hungry to keep things rolling into 2024.