ITF EXTRA: One Michigan football offensive star played with a secret injury last season
Michigan football star running back Donovan Edwards played down the stretch with a hand injury that hampered his ability to catch the ball. But the team needed him, and he never had any plans of sitting out after Blake Corum’s knee injury cut his season short.
But what we did not know is that Edwards played almost the entire season with a knee injury of his own. He told The Wolverine on Saturday evening from Wolverine Weekend at Grand Traverse Resort that he played on a torn patella throughout the 2022 campaign.
He suffered the injury in the game against Hawaii in Week 2. The surgery caused him to miss four months, but he is back to his healthy self and looking forward for the 2023 campaign.
Edwards explained the ailments he had last season:
“I had two screws in my hand and broke my thumb against Nebraska. What you guys did not know is that I played on torn patella the whole season. I got that fixed up and had surgery in February. I’ve been rehabbing now and I’m up to par now running, cutting, doing all that good stuff.
“That recovery wasn’t gonna take long. Four months to get to full speed and three months for me to feel good. I’m starting to trust myself now. Trusting myself with cutting and getting to my top speed… all that good stuff again, which isn’t gonna be hard for me.”
Between the knee and hand injury, Edwards pushed through when he could to make plays on the field for Michigan. It was never an option to do anything else.
“I wasn’t going to like allow that to stop me. My leg would’ve to have been cut off for me to not play,” he said. “Same thing with like the broken hand. Just put a cast on it, although I was just carrying it in my non-dominant hand. You know, just gotta do what you gotta do to come up successful and win the game.”
Edwards revealed that his surgery was done in the Metro Detroit area and that he has had no setbacks in his recovery. The Michigan back said he has been “left side dominant” in his life, but now that both sides of his body are strengthened and good to go, he expects big things.
“I always just thought it was tendonitis and it was just a little achy,” he said. “I found out against Hawaii. I had like made a catch right up the goal line, put my knee back and it just didn’t feel right. I found out it was partially torn.
After that, you know, just like continue like to work around it, you know, just like strengthen the thigh muscle, the patella itself. But now that I’ve focused on a lot and have strength in both of my legs, it’s about to get dangerous.”
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